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!!!*'  y''''i' 


^0xana  lE^tuts  iBabni^y 


^anta  Barbara  formal  ^cl|ool 
.-.X9X3... 


w.\ 


S  0  r 


THE 


RECREATIONS 


or 


CHRISTOPHER   NORTH. 


^o\ 


COMPLETE  IN  ONE  VOLUME. 


BOSTON: 

PHILLIPS,    SAMPSON,    AND    COMPANY 

NEW  YORK:    JAMES   C.   DERBY. 

1854. 


UKIVrnSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BAP.BAPwA  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 


Stzv  51184 

IZSf 


CONTENTS. 


Page 
CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  S?ORTING  JACKET,  ^ 

Fttte  Fihst 

Fttte  Second  

Fttte  THinu  

A  TALE  OF  EXPIATION ^/ 

44 

MORNING  MONOLOGUE 

THE  FIELD  OF  FLOWERS J^ 

COTTAGES 

AN  HOUR'S  TALK  ABOUT  POETRY ^^ 

INCH  CRUIN 

A  DAY  AT  WINDERMERE 

THE  MOORS,  ,  ^^g 

Phologce _ 

Flight  First— Gles  Etite 

Flight  Secoxii— The  Coves  of  Chuachait 

Flight  Thibd — Still  Life 

Flight  Foubth— Down  Riveb  and  up  Loch 

HIGHLAND  SNOW-STORM ^^^ 

THE  HOLY  CHILD ^^^ 

OUR  PARISH jgg 

MAY-DAY 

SACRED  POETRY,  ^^^ 

Chapter  I jgg 

Chapter  II jgg 

Chapter  III 200 

Chapter  IV 

CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY,  ^^^ 

First  Canticle ^^^^  2^3 

Second  Canticle ^^^   222 

Third  Canticle 228 

Fourth  Canticle 

DR.  KITCHINER,  234 

First  Course 238 

Second  Course 241 

Third  Course 245 

Fourth  Course 

SOLILOQUY  ON  THE  SEASONS,  ^49 

First  Rhapsody 255 

Second  Rhapsody 260 

A  FEW  WORDS  ON  THOMSON 267 

THE  SNOWBALL  BICKER  OF  PEDMOUNT ••••••  ^^^ 

CHRISTMAS  DREAMS 278 

OUR  WINTER  QUARTERS 

STROLL  TO  GRASSMERE,  287 

First  Saunter 297 

Second  Saunter 303 

L'ENVOY 3* 


EECREATIONS 


OF 


CHRISTOPHEH  NORTH. 


ClffilSTOPIIER  IN  HIS  SPOUTING  JACKET. 


FYTTE  FIRST. 

TiitnE  is  a  fine  and  beautiful  alliance  between 
all  pastimes  pursued  on  flood,  field,  and  fell. 
The  principles  in  human  nature  on  which  they 
depend,  are  in  all  the  same ;  but  those  princi- 
ples are  subject  to  infinite  modifications  and 
varieties,  according  to  the  difference  of  indi- 
vidual and  national  character.    All  such  pas- 
times, whether  followed  merely  as  pastimes, 
or  as  professions,  or  as  the  immediate  means 
of  sustaining  life,  require  sense,  sagacity,  and 
knowledge  of  nature  and  nature's  laws;  nor 
less,  patience,  perseverance,  courage  even,  and 
bodily  strength   or   activity,  while   the   spirit 
which  animates  and  supports  them  is  a  spirit 
of  anxiety,  doubt,  fear,  hope,  joy,  exultation, 
and    triumph— in   the   heart   of  the   j'oung  a 
fierce    passion — in    the    heart  of    the   old   a 
passion   still,  but  subdued   and   tamed  down, 
without,  however,  being  much  dulled  or  dead- 
ened, by  various  experience  of  all  the  myste- 
ries of  the  calling,  and  by  the  gradual  subsid- 
ing of  all  impetuous  impulses  in  the  frames 
of  all  mortal  men  beyond  perhaps  threescore, 
when  the  blackest  head  will  be  becoming  gray, 
the  most  nervous  knee   less   firmly  knit,  the 
most   steely-springed  instep   less   clastic,  the 
keenest  eye  less  of  a  far-keeker,  and,  above 
all,  the  most  boiling  heart  less  like  a  caldron 
or  a  crater — yea,  the  whole  man   subject  to 
some  dimness  or   decay,  and,   consequentl)-, 
the  whole  duty  of  man  like  the  new  edition 
of  a  book,  from  which   many  passages   that 
formed  the  chief  glory  of  the  aliiio princeps  have 
been  expunged — the  whole  character  of  the  style 
corrected  wiihoutbeing  thereby  improved— just 
like  the  later  editions  of  the  Pleasures  of  Ima- 
gination, which  were  written  by  Akenside  when 
he  was  about  twenty-one,  and  altered  by  him 
at  forty — to  the  exclusion  or   destruction    of 
many  most  spkndida  vitia,  by  which   process 
the  poem,  in  our  humble  opinion,  was  shorn 
of  its  brightest  beams,  and  suffered  disastrous 
twilight  and  eclipse— perplexing  critics. 

Now,  seeing  that  such  pastimes  are  in  num- 
ber almost  infinite,  and  infinite  the  varieties  of 


human  character,  pray  what  is  there  at  all  stir- 
prising  in  your  being  madly  fond  of  shooting — 
and  your  brother  Tom  just  as  foolish  about 
fishing — arid  cousin  Jack  perfectly  insane  on 
fox-hunting— while  the  old  gentleman  your  fa- 
ther, in  spite  of  wind  and  weather,  perennial 
gout,  and  annual  apoplexy,  goes  a-coursing  of 
the  white-hipped  hare  on  the  bleak  Yorkshire 
wolds— and  uncle  Ben,  as  if  just  escaped  from 
Bedlam  or  St.  Luke's,  with  Dr.  Haslam  at  his 
heels,  or  with  a  few  hundred  yards'  start  of 
Dr.  Warburton,  is  seen  galloping,  in  a  Welsh 
wig  and  strange  apparel,  in  the  rear  of  a  pack 
of  Lilliputian  beagles,  all  barking  as  if  they 
were  as  mad  as  their  master,  supposed  to  be 
in  chase  of  an  invisible  animal  that  keeps 
eternally  doubling  in  field  and  forest— "  still 
hoped  for,  never  seen,"  and  well  christened 
by  the  name  of  Escape  1 

Phrenology  sets  the  question  for  ever  at  rest. 
All  people  have  thirty-three  faculties.  Now 
there  are  but  twenty-four  letters  in  the  alpha- 
bet ;  yet  how  many  languages— some  six-thou- 
sand we  believe,  each  of  which  is  susceptible 
of  many  dialects !  No  wonder,  then,  that  you 
might  as  well  try  to  count  all  the  sands  on  the 
sea-shore  as  all  the  species  of  sportsmen. 

There  is,  therefore,  nothing  to  prevent  any 
man  with  a  large  and  sound  development 
from  excelling,  at  once,  in  rat-catching  and 
deer-stalking— from  being,  in  short,  a  univer- 
sal genius  in  sports  and  pastimes.  Heaven 
has  made  us  such  a  man. 

Yet  there  seems  to  be  a  natural  course  or 
progress  in  pastimes.  We  do  not  now  speak 
of  marbles— or  knuckling  down  at  taw— or 
trundling  a  hoop— or  pall-lall— or  pitch  and 
toss— or  any  other  of  the  games  of  the  school 
playground.  We  restrict  ourselves  to  what, 
somewhat  inaccurately  perhaps,  are  called 
field-sports.  Thus  angling  seems  the  earliest 
of  them  all  in  the  order  of  nature.  There  the 
new-breeched  urchin  stands  on  the  low  bridge 
of  the  little  bit  burnie  !  and  with  crooked  pin, 
baited  with  one  unwrilhing  ringof  adead  worm, 
and  attached  to  a  yarn-thread— for  he  has  not 
yet  got  into  hair,  and  is  years  off  gut— his  rod 
of  the  mere  willow  or  hazel  wand,  there  will 
A  2  5 


6 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


he  s:*and  during  all  his  play-hours,  as  forget- 
ful of  his  primer  as  if  the  weary  art  of  print- 
ing had  never  been  invented,  day  after  day, 
week  after  week,  month  after  month,  in  mute, 
deep,  earnest,  passionate,  heart-mind-and-soul- 
engrossing  hope  of  some  time  or  other  catch- 
ing a  minnow  or  abeardie!  A  tug — a  tug  ! 
With  face  ten  times  flushed  and  pale  by  turns 
ere  you  could  count  ten,  he  at  last  has  strength, 
in  the  agitation  of  his  fear  and  joy,  to  pull  away 
at  the  monster — and  there  he  lies  in  his  beauty 
among  the  gowans  and  the  greensward,  for  he 
has  whapped  him  right  over  his  head  and  far 
away,  a  fish  a  quarter  of  an  ounce  in  weight, 
and,  at  the  very  least,  two  inches  long  !  Off  he 
flies,  on  wings  of  wind,  to  his  father,  mother, 
and  sisters  and  brothers,  and  cousins,  and  all 
the  neighbourhood,  holding  the  fish  aloft  in 
both  hands,  still  fearful  of  its  escape,  and,  like 
a  genuine  child  of  corruption,  his  eyes  brighten 
at  the  first  blush  of  cold  blood  on  his  small 
fumy  fingers.  He  carries  about  with  him,  up- 
stairs and  down-stairs,  his  prey  upon  a  plate ; 
he  will  not  wash  his  hands  before  dinner,  for 
he  exults  in  the  silver  scales  adhering  to  the 
thumb-nail  that  scooped  the  pin  out  of  the 
baggy's  maw — and  at  night,  "cabin'd,  cribb'd, 
confined,"  he  is  overheard  murmuring  in  his 
sleep — a  thief,  a  robber,  and  a  murderer,  in  his 
yet  infant  dreams ! 

From  that  hour  Angling  is  no  more  a  mere 
delightful  day-dream,  haunted  by  the  dim  hopes 
of  imaginary  minnows,  but  a  realitj' — an  art — 
a  science — of  which  the  flaxen-headed  school- 
boy feels  himself  to  be  master — a  mystery  in 
which  he  has  been  initiated;  and  off  he  goes 
now  all  alone,  in  the  power  of  successful  pas- 
sion to  the  distant  brook — brook  a  mile  ofl^ — 
with  fields,  and  hedges,  and  single  trees,  and 
little  groves,  and  a  huge  forest  of  six  acres,  be- 
tween it  and  the  house  in  which  he  is-boarded 
or  was  born  !  There  flows  on  the  slender  music 
of  the  shadowy  shallows — there  pours  the 
deeper  din  of  the  birch-tree'd  waterfall.  The 
scared  water-pyet  flits  away  from  stone  to  stone, 
and  dipping,  disappears  among  the  airy  bubbles, 
to  him  a  new  sight  of  joy  and  wonder.  And  oh  ! 
how  sweet  the  scent  of  the  broom  or  furze,  yel- 
lowing along  the  braes,  whore  leap  the  lambs, 
less  happy  than  he,  on  the  knolls  of  sunshine  ! 
His  grandfather  has  given  him  a  half-crown  rod 
in  two  pieces — yes,  his  line  is  of  hair  twisted — 
plaited  by  his  own  soon-instructed  little  fingers. 
By  Heavens,  he  is  fishing  with  the  fly  !  And 
the  Fates,  who,  grim  and  grisly  as  they  are 
painted  to  be  by  full-grown,  ungrateful,  lying 
poets,  smile  like  ansjels  upon  thepaidler  in  the 
brook,  winnowing  the  air  M'ith  their  wings  into 
western  breezes,  while  at  the  very  first  throw 
the  yellow  trout  forsakes  his  fistness  beneath 
the  bog-wood,  and  with  a  lazy  wallop,  and 
then  a  sudden  plunge,  and  then  a  race  like 
lightning,  changes  at  once  the  child  into  the 
boy,  and  shoots  through  his  thrilling  and  aching 
heart  the  ecstasy  of  a  new  life  expanding  in 
that  glorious  pastime,  even  as  a  rainbow  on  a 
sudden  brightens  up  the  sky.  Fortnna  fnvcl 
fnrtihus — and  with  one  long  pull,  and  strong 
pull,  and  pull  altogether,  Johnny  lands  a  twelve- 
incher  on  the  soft,  smooth,  silvery  sand  of  the 
only  bay  in  all  the  burn  where  such  an  exploit 


was  possible,  and  dashing  upon  him  like  an 
osprey,  soars  up  with  him  in  his  talons  to  the 
bank,  breaking  his  line  as  he  hurries  off  to  a 
spot  of  safety  twenty  yards  from  the  pool,  and 
then  flinging  him  down  on  a  heath-surrounded 
plat  of  sheep-nibbled  verdure,  lets  him  bounce 
about  till  he  is  tired,  and  lies  gasping  with  un- 
frequent  and  feeble  motions,  bright  and  beauti- 
ful, and  glorious  with  all  his  yellow  light  and 
crimson  lustre,  spotted,  speckled,  and  starred 
in  his  scaly  splendour,  beneath  a  sun  that  never 
shone  before  so  dazzingly :  but  now  the  ra- 
diance of  the  captive  creature  is  dimmer  and 
obscured,  for  the  eye  of  day  winks  and  seems 
almost  shut  behind  that  slow-sailing  mass  of 
clouds,  composed  in  equal  parts  of  air,  rain, 
and  sunshine. 

Springs,  summers,  autumns,  winters — each 
within  itself  longer,  by  many  times  longer  than 
the  whole  year  of  grown-up  life,  that  slips  at 
last  through  one's  fingers  like  a  knotless  thread 
— pass  over  the  curled  darling's  brow ;   and 
look  at  him  now,  a  straight  and  strengthy  strip- 
ling, in   the  savage  spirit  of  sport,  springing 
over  rock-ledge  after  rock-ledge,  nor  heeding 
aught  as  he  plashes  knee-deep,  or  waistband- 
high,  through  river-feeding  torrents,  to  the  glo- 
rious music  of  his  running  and  ringing  reel, 
after  a  tongue-hooked  salmon,  insanely  seeking 
with  the  ebb  of  tide,  but  all  in  vain,  the  white 
breakers  of  the  sea.     No  hazel  or  willow  wand, 
no  half-crown  rod  of  ash  framed   by  village 
Wright,  is  now  in  his  practised  hands,  of  which 
the  veri-  left  is  dexterous ;  but  a  twenty-feet 
rod  of  Phin's,  all  ring-rustling,  and  a-glitter 
with  the  preserving  varnish,  limber  as  the  at- 
tenuating line  itself,  and  lithe  to   its  topmost 
tenuity  as  the  elephant's  proboscis — the  hiccory 
and  the  horn  without  twist,  knot,  or  flaw — from 
butt  to  fly  a  faultless  taper,  "fine  by  degrees 
and  beautilully  less,"  the  beau-ideal  of  a  rod 
by  the  skill  of  cunning  craftsman  to  the  senses 
materialized!  A  fish — fat, fair, and  forty !  "She 
is  a  salmon,  therefore  to  be  woo'd — she  is  a 
salmon,  therefore  to  be  won" — but  shy,  timid, 
capricious,  headstrong,  now  wrathful  and  now 
full  of  fear,  like  any  other  female  Avhom  the 
cruel  artist  has  hooked  by  lip  or  heart,  and,  in 
spite  of  all  her  strug?line,  will  bring  to  the 
a;asp  at  last ;  and  then  with  calm  eyes  behold 
her  lying  in  the  shade  dead  or  worse  than  dead, 
fast-fading,  and  to  be  re-illumined  no  more  the 
lustre   of  her   beauty,   insensible   to   sun   or 
shower,  even  the  most  perishable  of  all  perish- 
able things  in  a  world  of  perishing  ! — But  the 
salmon  has  grown  sulky,  and  must  be  made  to 
spring  to  the  plunging-stone.    There,  suddenly, 
instinct  with  new  passion,  she  shoots  out  of 
the  foam  like  a  bar  of  silver  bullion  ;  and,  re- 
lasping  into  the  flood,  is  in  another  moment  at 
the  very  head  of  the  waterfall!   Give  her  the 
butt — give  her  the  butt — or  she  is  gone  for  ever 
with  the  thunder  into  ten  fathom  deep! — Now 
comes  the  trial  of  your  tackle — and  when  was 
Phin  ever  known  to  fail  at  the  edge  of  clifl^or 
cataract  1     Her  snout  is  southwards — richt  up 
the  middle  of  the  main  current  of  the  hill-born 
river,  as  if  she  would   seek  its  very  course 
where  she  was  spawned !     She  stiJl  swims 
swift,  and  strong,  and  deep — and  the  line  goes 
steady,  boys,  steady — stifl!'and  steady  as  a  Tory 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 


in  the  roar  of  Opposition.  There  is  yet 
an  hour's  play  in  her  dorsal  fin — danger  in 
the  flap  of  her  tail — and  yet  may  her  silver 
shoulder  shatter  the  gut  against  a  rock. 
Why  the  river  was  yesterday  in  spate,  and  she 
is  fresh  run  from  the  sea.  All  the  lesser 
waterfalls  are  now  level  with  the  flood,  and 
she  meets  with  no  impediment  or  obstruction 
—the  course  is  clear — no  tree-roots  here — no 
floating  branches — for  during  the  night  they 
have  all  been  swept  down  to  the  salt  loch. 
In  medio  tniissimas  ibis — ay,  now  you  feel  she 
begins  to  fail — the  butt  tells  now  every  time 
you  deliver  your  right.  What !  another  mad 
leap!  yet  another  sullen  plunge!  She  seems 
absolutely  to  have  discovered,  or  rather  to  be 
an  impersonation  of,  the  Perpetual  Motion. 
Stand  back  out  of  the  way,  you  son  of  a  sea- 
cook  ! — you  in  the  tattered  blue  breeches,  with 
the  tail  of  your  shirt  hanging  out.  Who  the 
devil  sent  you  all  here,  ye  vagabonds  ? — Ha  ! 
Watty  Ritchie,  my  man,  is  that  you  1  God 
bless  your  honest  laughinG;  phiz  !  What  Watty, 
would  you  think  of  a  Fish  like  that  about 
Peebles  1  Tam  Grieve  never  gruppit  sae  heavy 
a  ane  since  first  he  bclangcd  to  the  Council. — 
Curse  that  colley  !  Ay  !  well  done,  Watty  ! 
Stone  him  to  Stobbo.  Confound  these  stirks — 
if  that  white  one,  with  caving  horns,  kicking 
heels,  and  straighl-up  tail,  come  bellowing  by 
between  us  and  the  river,  then,  "  Madam  !  all 
is  lost,  except  honour!"  If  we  lose  this  Fish 
at  six  o'clock,  then  suicide  at  seven.  Our  will 
is  made — ten  thousand  to  the  Foundlin? — ditto 

to  the  Thames  Tunnel ha — ha — my  Beauty! 

Methinks  we  could  fain  and  fond  kiss  thy  silver 
side,  languidly  lying  afloat  on  the  foam  as  if 
all  further  resistance  now  were  vain,  and  grace- 
fully thou  wert  surrendering  thyself  to  death  ! 
No  faith  in  female — she  trusts  to  the  last  trial 
of  her  tail — sweetly  workcst  thou,  0  Reel  of 
Reels !  and  on  thy  smooth  axle  spinning 
slecp'st,  even.as  Milton  describes  her,  like  our 
own  worthy  planet.  Scrope — Bainbridge — 
Maule — princes  among  Anglers — oh  !  that  you 
were  here!  Where  the  devil  is  Sir  Humphry] 
At  his  retort]  By  mysterious  sympathy — far 
oflf  at  his  own  Trows,  the  Kerss  feels  that  we 
are  killing  the  noblest  fish  whose  back  ever 
rippled  the  surface  of  deep  or  shallow  in  the 
Tweed.  Tom  Purdy  stands  like  a  seer,  en- 
tranced in  glorious  vision,  beside  turreted  Ab- 
botsford.  Shade  of  Sandy  Govan!  Alas!  alas! 
I'oor  Sandv — why  on  thvpale  face  that  melan- 
choly smile  !— Peter !  the  Gaff!  The  Gaff! 
Into  the  eddy  she  sails,  sick  and  slow,  and  al- 
most with  a  swirl — whitening  as  she  nears  the 
sand — there  she  has  it — struck  right  into  the 
shoulder,  fairer  than  that  of  Juno,  Diana,  Mi- 
nerva, or  Venus — and  lies  at  last  in  all  her  glo- 
rious length  and  breadth  of  beaming  beauty, 
fit  prey  for  giant  or  demigod  angling  before 
the  Flood ! 

"The  child  is  father  of  the  man. 
And  I  would  wish  my  days  to  be 
Bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety!" 

So  much  for  the  Angler.  The  Shooter, 
again,  he  begins  with  his  pipe-gun,  formed  of 
the  last  year's  growth  of  a  branch  of  the  plane- 
tree — the  beautiful  dark-green-leaved  and  fra- 
grant-flowered plane-tree — that  stands  straight 


in  stem  and  round  in  head,  visible  and  audible 
too  from  afar  the  bee-resounding  umbrage, 
alike  on  stormy  sea-coast  and  in  sheltered  in- 
land vale,  still  loving  the  roof  of  the  fisher- 
man's or  peasant's  cottage. 

Then  comes,  perhaps,  the  city  pop-gun,  in 
shape  like  a  very  musket,  such  as  soldiers 
bear — a  Christmas  present  from  parent,  once 
a  colonel  of  volunteers — nor  feeble  to  discharge 
the  pea-bullet  or  barley-shot,  formidable  to  face 
and  eyes ;  nor  yet  unfelt,  at  six  paces,  by  hin- 
der-end of  playmate,  scornfully  yet  fearfully 
exposed.  But  the  shooter  soon  tires  of  such 
ineffectual  trigger — and  his  soul,  as  well  as 
his  hair,  is  set  on  fire  by  that  extraordinary 
compound — Gunpowder.  He  begins  with  burn- 
ing off  his  eyebrows  on  the  King's  birthday; 
squibs  and  crackers  follow,  and  all  the  plea- 
sures of  the  pluff".  But  he  soon  longs  to  let 
off  a  gun — "  and  follow  to  the  field  some  war- 
like lord" — in  hopes  of  being  allowed  to  dis- 
charge one  of  the  double-barrels,  after  Ponto 
has  made  his  last  point,  and  the  half-hidden 
chimneys  of  home  are  again  seen  smoking 
among  the  trees.  This  is  his  first  practice  in 
fire  arms,  and  from  that  hour  he  is — a  Shooter. 

Then  there  is  in  most  rural  parishes — and 
of  rural  parishes  alone  do  we  condescend  to 
speak — a  pistol,  a  horse  one,  with  a  bit  of  silver 
on  the  butt — perhaps  one  that  originally  served 
in  the  Scots  Greys.  It  is  bought,  or  borrowed, 
by  the  young  shooter,  who  begins  firing  first 
at  barn-doors,  then  at  trees,  and  then  at  living 
things — a  strange  cur,  who,  from  his  lolling 
tongue  may  be  supposed  to  have  the  hydrophobia 
— a  cat  that  has  purred  herself  asleep  on  the 
sunny  churchyard  wall,  or  is  watching  mice  at 
their  hole-mouths  among  the  graves — a  water- 
rat  in  the  mill-lead — or  weasel  that,  running  to 
his  retreat  in  the  wall, always  turns  round  to  look 
at  you — a  goose  wandered  from  his  common 
in  disappointed  love — or  brown  duck,  easily 
mistaken  by  the  unscrupulous  for  a  wild  one, 
in  pond  remote  from  human  dwelling,  or  on 
meadow  by  the  river  side,  away  from  the  clack 
of  the  muter-mill.  The  corby-crow,  too,  shout- 
ed out  of  his  nest  on  some  tree  lower  than 
usual,  is  a  good  flying  mark  to  the  more  ad- 
vanced class  :  or  morning  magpie,  a-chatter 
at  skreigh  of  day  close  to  the  cottage  door 
among  the  chickens  ;  or  a  flock  of  pigeons 
wheeling  overhead  on  the  stubble  field,  or  sit- 
ting so  thick  together,  that  every  stock  is  blue 
with  tempting  plumage. 

But  the  pistol  is  discharged  for  a  fowling 
piece — brown  and  rusty,  with  a  slight  crack 
probably  in  the  muzzle,  and  a  lock  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  barrel.  Then  the  young 
shooter  aspires  at  halfpennies  thrown  up  into 
the  air — and  generally  hit,  for  there  is  never 
wanting  an  apparent  dent  in  copper  metal ; 
and  thence  he  mounts  to  the  glancing  and 
skimming  swallow,  a  household  bird,  and  there- 
fore to  be  held  sacred,  but  shot  at  on  the  excuse 
of  its  being  next  to  impossible  to  hit  him — an 
opinion  strengthened  into  belief  by  several 
summers'  practice.  But  the  small  brown  and 
white  marten  wheeling  through  below  the 
bridge,  or  along  the  many-holed  red  sand-bank, 
is  admitted  by  all  boys  to  be  fair  game — and 
still   more,  the   longed-winged  legless   black 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


devilet,  that,  if  it  falls  to  the  ground,  cannot  rise 
again,  and  therefore  screams  wheeling  round 
the  corners  and  battlements  of  towers  and  cas- 
tles, or  far  out  even  of  cannon  shot,  gambles 
in  companies  of  hundreds,  and  regiments  of  a 
thousand,  aloft  in  the  evening  ether,  within 
the  orbit  of  the  eagle's  flight.  It  seems  to  boy- 
ish eyes,  that  the  creatures  near  the  earth, 
when  but  little  blue  sky  is  seen  between  the 
specks  and  the  wallflowers  growing  on  the 
coign  of  vantage— the  signal  is  given  to  fire ; 
but  the  devilets  are  too  high  in  heaven  to  smell 
the  sulphur.  The  starling  whips  with  a  shrill 
cry  into  his  nest,  and  nothing  falls  to  the  ground 
bnt  a  tiny  bit  of  mossy  mortar  inhabited  by  a 
spider ! 

But  the  Day  of  Days  arrives  at  last,  when 
the  school-boy,  or  rather  the  college  boy-,  return- 
ing to  his  rural  vacation,  (for  in  Scotland 
college  winters  tread  close,  too  close,  on  the 
heels  of  academies,)  has  a  gun — a  gun  in  a 
case — a  double-barrel  too — of  his  own — and  is 
provided  with  a  license,  probably  without  any 
other  qualification  than  that  of  hit  or  miss.  On 
some  portentous  morning  he  efTulges  with  the 
sun  in  velveteen  jacket  and  breeches  of  the 
same — many-buttoned  gaiters,  and  an  unker--* 
chiefed  throat.  'Tis  the  fourteenth  of  Septem- 
ber, and  lo  !  a  pointer  at  his  heels — Ponto,  of 
course — a  game-bag  like  a  beggar's  wallet  at 
his  side — destined  to  be  at  eve  as  full  of  charity 
— and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  an  accomplished 
sportsman.  Proud,  were  she  to  see  the  sight, 
would  be  the  "mother  that  bore  him;"  the 
heart  of  that  old  sportsman,  his  daddy,  would 
sing  for  joy  !  The  chained  mastiff  in  the  yard 
yowls  his  admiration ;  the  servant  lasses  uplift 
the  pane  of  their  garret,  and,  with  suddenly 
withdrawn  blushes,  titter  their  delight  in  their 
rich  paper  curls  and  pure  night-clothes.  Rab 
Roger,  who  has  been  cleaning  out  the  barn, 
comes  forth  to  partake  of  the  caulker;  and 
away  go  the  footsteps  of  the  old  poacher 
and  his  pupil  through  the  autumnal  rime,  ofl" 
to  the  uplands,  where — for  it  is  one  of  the  ear- 
liest of  harvests — there  is  scarcely  a  single 
acre  of  standing  corn.  The  turnip  fields  are 
bright  green  with  hope  and  expectation — and 
coveys  are  couching  on  lazy  beds  beneath 
the  potato-shaw.  Every  high  hedge,  ditch- 
guarded  on  either  side,  shelters  its  own  brood — 
imagination  hears  the  whir  shaking  the  dew- 
drops  from  the  broom  on  the  brae— and  first 
one  bird,  and  then  another,  and  then  the  re- 
maining number,  in  itself  no  contemptible  co- 
vey, seems  to  fancy's  ear  to  spring  single,  or  in 
the  clouds,  from  the  coppice  brushwood  with 
here  and  there  an  intercepting  standard  tree. 

Poor  Ponto  is  much  to  b&-,  pitied.  Either 
having  a  cold  in  his  nose,  or  having  ante-break- 
fasted by  stealth  on  a  red  herring,  he  can  scent 
nothing  short  of  a  badger,  and,  every  other  field, 
he  starts  in  horror,  shame,  and  amazement,  to 
hear  himself,  without  having  attended  to  his 
points,  enclosed  in  a  whirring  cove)\  He  is 
still  duly  taken  between  those  inexorable 
'knees;  out  comes  the  speck-and-span  new 
dog-whip,  heavy  enough  for  a  horse  ;  and  the 
yowl  of  the  patient  is  heard  over  the  whole 
■parish.  Mothers  press  their  yet  unchastised 
M'fants  to  their  breasts  ;  and  the  schoolmaster. 


fastening  a  knowing  eye  on  dunce  and  ne'er- 
do-weel,  holds  up,  in  silent  warning,  the  terror 
of  the  taws.  Frequent  flogging  will  cowe  the 
spirit  of  the  best  man  and  dog  in  Britain. 
Ponto  travels  now  in  fear  and  trembling  but  a 
few  yards  from  his  tyrant's  feet,  till,  rousing 
himself  to  the  sudden  scent  of  something  smell- 
ing strongly,  he  draws  slowly  and  beautifully, 

and 

"There  fix'd,  a  perfect  semicirle  stands." 

Up  runs  the  Tyro  ready-cocked,  and,  in  his 
eagerness,  stumbling  among  the  stubbl«,when, 
hark  and  lo !  the  gabble  of  grey  goslings,  and 
the  bill-protruded  hiss  of  goose  and  gander ! 
Bang  goes  the  right-hand  barrel  at  Ponto,  who 
now  thinks  it  high  time  to  be  ofi"  to  the  tune 
of  "ower  the  hills  and  far  awa',"  while  the 
young  gentleman,  half-ashamed  and  half-in- 
censed, half-glad  and  half-sorry,  discharges  the 
left-hand  barrel,  with  a  highly  improper  curse, 
at  the  father  of  the  feathered  family  before  him, 
who  receives  the  shot  like  a  ball  in  his  breast, 
throws  a  somerset  quite  surprising  for  a  bird 
of  his  usual  habits,  and  after  biting  the  dast 
with  his  bill,  and  thumping  it  with  his  bottom, 
breathes  an  eternal  farewell  to  this  sublunary 
scene — and  leaves  himself  to  be  paid  for  at 
the  rate  of  eighteenpence  a  pound  to  his  justly 
irritated  owner,  on  whose  farm  he  had  led  a 
long  and  not  only  harmless,  but  honourable 
and  useful  life. 

It  is  nearly  as  impossible  a  thing  as  we 
know,  to  borrow  a  dog  about  the  time  the  sun 
has  reached  his  meridian,  on  the  First  Day  of 
the  Partridges.  Ponto  by  this  lime  has  sneaked, 
unseen  by  human  eye,  into  his  kennel,  and 
coiled  himself  up  into  the  anns  of  "  tired  Na- 
ture's sweet  restorer,  balmy  sleep."  A  farmer 
makes  offer  of  a  colley,  who,  from  numbering 
among  his  paternal  ancestors  a  Spanish  pointer, 
is  quite  a  Don  in  his  way  among  the  cheepers, 
and  has  been  known  in  a  turnip  field  to  stand 
in  an  altitude  very  similar  to  that  of  setting. 
Luath  has  no  objection  to  a  frolic  over  the 
fields,  and  plays  the  part  of  Ponto  lo  perfection. 
At  last  he  catches  sight  of  a  covey  basking, 
and,  leaping  in  upon  them  open-mouthed,  de- 
spatches them  right  and  left,  even  like  the  fa- 
mous dog  Billy  killing  rats  in  the  pit  at  West- 
minster. The  birds  are  bagged  with  a  genile 
remonstrance,  and  Luath's  exploit  rewarded 
with  a  whang  of  cheese.  Elated  by  the  pres- 
sure on  his  shoulder,  the  young  gentleman 
laughs  at  the  idea  of  pointing ;  and  fires  away, 
like  winking,  at  every  uprise  of  birds,  near  or 
remote;  M'orks  a  miracle  bybringing  down  three 
at  a  time,  that  chanced,  unknown  to  him,  to  be 
crossing,  and  wearied  wiih  such  slaughter, 
lends  his  gun  to  the  attendant  farmer,  who  can 
mark  down  to  an  inch,  and  walks  up  to  the 
dropped  pout  as  if  he  could  kick  her  up  with 
his  foot ;  and  thus  the  bag  in  a  few  hours  is 
half  full  of  feathers;  while,  to  close  with  eclat 
the  sport  of  the  day,  the  cunning  elder  takes 
him  to  a  bramble  bush,  in  a  wall  nook,  at  the 
edge  of  the  wood,  and  returning  the  gun  into 
his  hands,  shows  him  poor  pussy  sitting  with 
open  eyes,  fast  asleep  !  The  pellets  are  in  her 
brain,  and  turning  herself  over,  she  crunkles 
out  to  her  full  length,  like  a  piece  of  untwisting 
Indian  rubber,  and   is   dead.    The   posterior 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 


9 


ponch  of  ihc  jacket,  yet  unstained  by  blood, 
yawns  lo  icceive  her — and  in  she  goes  plump  ; 
paws,  ears,  bod}',  feet,  fud,  and  all — while  Luath, 
all  the  way  home  to  the  Mains,  keeps  snoking 
at  the  red  drops  oozing  through ;  for  well  he 
knows,  in  summer's  heat  and  winter's  cold, 
the  smell  of  pussy,  whether  sitting  beneath  a 
tuft  of  withered  grass  on  the  brae,  or  burrowed 
beneath  a  snow  wreath.  A  hare,  we  certainly 
must  say,  in  spite  of  haughtier  sportsman's 
scorn,  is,  when  sitting,  a  most  satisfactory  shot. 
But  let  us  trace  no  further  thus,  s'tep  by  step, 
the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  Look  at  him  now — a 
finished  sportsman — on  the  moors — the  bright 
black  botindless  Dalwhinnie  moors,  stretching 
away,  by  long  Loch  Erric^t  side,  into  the  dim 
and  distant  day  that  han?s,with  all  its  clouds, 
over  the  bosom  of  far  Loch  Rannoch.  Is  that 
the  piuffer  at  partridge-pouts  who  had  nearly 
been  the  death  of  poor  Ponto  ?  Lord  Kennedy 
himself  might  take  a  lesson  now  from  the 
straight  and  steady  stj'le  in  which  on  the  moun- 
tain brow,  and  up  to  the  middle  in  heather,  he 
brings  his  Manton  to  the  deadly  level !  More  un- 
erring eye  never  glanced  along  brown  barrel ! 
Finer  foiefinger  never  touched  a  trigger !  Fol- 
low him  a  whole  day,  and  not  one  wounded  bird. 
All  most  beautifully  arrested  on  their  flight  by 
instantaneous  death !  Down  dropped  right 
and  left,  like  lead  on  the  heather — old  cock  and 
hen,  singled  out  among  the  orphaned  brood,  as 
calmly  as  a  cook  would  do  it  in  the  larder  from 
among  a  pile  of  plumage.  No  random  shot 
within — no  needless  shot  out  of  distance — 
covered  every  feather  before  stir  of  finger — 
and  body,  back,  and  brain,  pierced,  broken, 
shattered  !  And  what  perfect  pointers  !  There 
they  stand,  as  siill  as  death — yet  instinct  with 
life — the  whole  half  dozen  !  Mungo,  the  black- 
tanned — Don,  the  red-spotted — Clara,  the  snow- 
while — Primrose,  the  pale  j-ellow — Basto,  the 
bright  brown,  and  Nimrod,  in  his  coat  of  many 
colours,  often  seen  afar  through  the  mists  like 
a  meteor. 

So  much  for  the  Angler's  and  the  Shooter's 
Progress — now  briefly  for  the  Hunter's.  Hunt- 
ing, in  this  country, unquestionably  com.mences 
with  cats.  Few  cottages  without  a  cat.  If  you 
do  not  find  her  on  the  mouse  watch  at  the  gable 
end  of  the  house  just  at  the  corner,  take  a  solar 
observation,  and  by  it  look  for  her  on  bank  or 
brae — somewhere  about  the  premises — if  un- 
successful, peep  into  the  byre,  and  up  through 
a  hole  among  the  dusty  divots  of  the  roof,  and 
chance  is  you  see  her  eyes  glittering  far-ben 
in  the  gloom;  but  if  she  be  not  there  either, 
into  the  barn  and  up  on  the  mow,  and  surely 
she  is  on  the  straw  or  on  the  baulks  below  the 
kipples.  No.  Well,  then,  let  )'our  eye  travel 
along  the  edge  of  that  little  wood  behind  the 
cottage — ay,  yonder  she  is  ! — but  she  sees  both 
you  and  your  two  terriers — one  rough  and  the 
other  smooth — and,  slinking  away  through  a 
gap  in  the  old  hawthorn  hedge  in  among  the 
hazels,  she  either  lies  perdu,  or  is  up  a  fir-tree 
almost  as  high  as  the  magpie's  orcorby's  nest. 
Now — observe — shooting  cats  is  one  thing — 
and  hunting  them  is  another — and  shooting 
and  hunting,  though  they  may  be  united,  are 
here  treated  separately ;  so,  in  the  present  case, 
the  cat  makes  her  escape.  But  get  her  watch- 
2 


ing  birds — ^young  larks,  perhaps,  walking  on  the 
lea — or  young  linnets  hanging  on  the  broom — 
down  by  yonder  in  the  holm  lands,  where  there 
are  no  trees,  except  indeed  that  one  glorious  sin- 
gle tree,  the  Golden  Oak,  and  he  is  guarded  by 
Glowrer,  and  then  what  a  most  capital  chase  ! 
Stretching  herself  up  with  crooked  back,  as 
if  taking  a  yawn — off  she  jumps,  with  tremen- 
dous spangs,  and  tail,  thickened  with  fear  and 
anger,  perpendicular.  Youf — youf — youf — go 
the  terriers — head  over  heels  perhaps  in  their 
fury — and  are  not  long  in  turning  her — and 
bringing  her  to  bay  at  the  hedge-root,  all 
ablaze  and  abristle.  A  she-devil  incarnate  ! — 
Hark — all  at  once  now  strikes  up  a  trio — Ca- 
talani  caterwauling  the  treble — Glowrer  taking 
the  bass — and  Tearer  the  tenor — a  cruel  con- 
cert cut  short  by  a  squalling  throttler.  Away — 
away  along  the  holm — and  over  the  knowe — 
and  into  the  wood — for  lo  !  the  gudewife,  bran- 
dishing a  besom,  comes  flying  demented  with- 
out her  mutch  down  to  the  murder  of  her  tabby 
— her  son,  a  stout  stripling,  is  seen  skirting  the 
potato-field  to  intercept  our  flight — and,  most 
formidable  of  all  foes,  the  Man  of  the  House 
himself,  in  his  shirt-sleeves  and  flail  in  his 
hand,  bolts  from  the  barn,  down  the  croft, 
across  the  burn,  and  up  the  brae,  to  cut  us  off 
from  the  Manse.  The  hunt's  up — and  'tis  a 
capital  steeple  chase.  Disperse — disperse  ! 
Down  the  hill,  Jack — up  the  hill,  Gill — dive 
the  dell.  Kit — thread  the  wood,  Pat — a  hun- 
dred yards'  start  is  a  great  matter — a  stern 
chase  is  always  a  long  chase — schoolboys  are 
generally  in  prime  wind — the  old  man  begins 
lo  puff  and  blow,  and  snort,  and  put  his  paws 
to  his  paunch — the  son  is  thrown  out  by  a 
double  of  dainty  Davy's — and  the  "sair  be- 
grutten  mithcr"  is  gathering  up  the  tTn  and 
tattered  remains  of  Tortoise-shell  Tabby,  and 
invoking  the  vengeance  of  heaven  and  earth 
on  her  pitiless  murderers.  Some  slight  relief 
to  her  bursting  and  breaking  heart  to  vow,  that 
she  will  make  the  minister  hear  of  it  on  the 
deafest  side  of  his  head — a)',  even  if  she  have 
to  break  in  upon  him  sitting  on  Saturday  night, 
getting  aff  by  rote  his  fushionless  sermon,  in 
his  ain  study- 
Now,  gentle  reader,  again  observe,  that 
though  we  have  now  described,  con  amorc,  a 
most  cruel  case  of  cat-killing,  in  which  Ave 
certainly  did  play  a  most  aggravated  part, 
some  Sixty  Years  since,  far  indeed  are  we 
from  recommending  such  wanton  barbarity 
to  the  rising  generation.  We  are  not  inditing 
a  homily  on  humanity  to  animals,  nor  have 
we  been  appointed  to  succeed  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Somerville  of  Currie,  the  great  Patentee  of  the 
Safety  Double  Bloody  Barrel,  to  preach  the 
annual  Gibsonian  sermon  on  that  subject — 
we  are  simply  stating  certain  matters  of  fact, 
illustrative  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  love 
of  pastime  in  the  soul,  and  leave  our  readers 
to  draw  the  moral.  But  may  we  be  permitted 
to  say,  that  the  naughtiest  schoolboys  often 
make  the  most  pious  men ;  that  it  does  not 
follow  according  to  the  wise  saws  and  modern 
instances  of  prophetic  old  women  of  both  sexes, 
that  he  who  in  boyhood  has  worried  a  cat  with 
terriers,  will,  in  manhood,  commit  murder  on 
one  of  his  own  species  ;  or  that  peccadilloes 


10 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


are  the  progenitors  of  capital  crimes.  Nature 
alloM's  to  growing  lads  a  certain  range  of  wick- 
edness, sans-peur  et  sans  reprochc.  She  seems, 
indeed,  to  whistle  into  their  ear,  to  mock  an- 
cient females — to  laugh  at  Quakers — to  make 
mouths  at  a  descent  man  and  his  wife  riding 
double  to  church — the  matron's  thick  legs  lu- 
dicrously bobbing  from  the  pillion,  kept  firm 
on  Dobbin's  rump  by  her  bottom,  '' ponckribiis 
librata  suis," — to  tip  the  wink  to  young  women 
during  sermon  on  Sunday — and  on  Saturday, 
most  impertinently  to  kiss  them,  whether  they 
will  or  no,  on  high-road  or  by-path — and  to  per- 
petrate many  other  little  nameless  enormities. 
No  doubt,  at  the  time,  such  things  will  wear 
rather  a  suspicious  character ;  and  the  boy  who 
is  detected  in  the  fact,  must  be  punished  by 
pawmy,  or  privation,  or  imprisonment  from 
play.  But  when  punished,  he  is  of  course  left 
free  to  resume  his  atrocious  career;  nor  is  it 
found  that  he  sleeps  a  whit  the  less  soundly, 
or  shrieks  for  Heaven's  mercy  in  his  dreams. 
Conscience  is  not  a  craven.  Groans  belong 
to  guilt.  But  fun  and  frolic,  even  when  tres- 
passes, are  not  guilt ;  and  though  a  cat  have 
nine  lives,  she  has  but  one  Ghost — and  that 
will  haunt  no  house  where  there  are  terriers. 
What !  surely  if  you  have  the  happiness  of 
being  a  parent  you  would  not  wish  your  only 
boy — your  son  and  heir — the  blended  image 
of  his  mother's  loveliness  and  his  father's 
manly  beaut)' — to  be  a  smug,  smooth,  prim, 
and  proper  prig,  with  his  hair  always  combed 
down  on  his  forehead,  hands  always  unglaiired, 
and  without  spot  or  blemish  on  his  white-thread 
stockings'?  You  would  not  wish  him,  surely, 
to  be  always  moping  and  musing  in  a  corner 
with  a  good  book  held  close  to  his  nose — bo- 
tanizing with  his  maiden  aunts — doing  the 
pretty  at  tea-tables  with  tabbies,  in  handing 
round  the  short-bread,  taking  cups,  and  attend- 
ing to  the  kettle — telling  tales  on  all  naughty 
boys  and  girls — laying  up  his  penny  a-week 
pocket-money  in  a  penny  pig — keeping  all  his 
clothes  neatly  folded  up  in  an  untumblcd 
drawer — having  his  own  peg  for  his  uncrushcd 
hat — saying  his  prayers  precisely  as  the  clock 
strikes  nine,  while  his  companions  are  3'et  at 
blind-man's  bufT— and  pufled  up  every  Sabbath- 
eve  by  the  parson's  praises  of  his  uncommon 
memory  for  a  sermon — while  all  the  other  boys 
are  scolded  for  having  fallen  asleep  before 
Tenthly  1  You  would  not  wish  him,  surely, 
to  write  sermons  himself  at  his  tender  years, 
nay — even  to  be  able  to  give  you  chapter  and 
verse  for  every  quotation  from  the  Bible  ?  No. 
Better  far  that  he  should  begin  early  to  break 
your  heart,  by  taking  no  care  even  of  his  Sun- 
day clothes — blottinghis  copv — impiously  pin- 
ning pieces  of  paper  to  the  Dominie's  tail,  who 
to  him  was  a  second  father— going  to  the  fish- 
ing not  only  without  leave  but  against  orders- 
bathing  in  the  forbidden  pool,  where  the  tai- 
lor was  drowned— drying  powder  before  the 
school-room  fire,  and  blowing  himself  and 
two  crack-sculled  cronies  to  the  ceiling — tyinir 
kettles  to  the  tails  of  dogs— shooting  an  old 
woman's  laying  hen— galloping  bare-backed 
shelties  down  stony  steeps— climbing  frees  10 
the  slenderest  twig  on  which  bird  could  build, 
PJid  up  the  tooth-of-time-intended  sides  of  old 


castles  after  wall-flowers  and  starlings — being 
run  away  with  in  carts  by  colts  against  turn- 
pike gates — buying  bad  ballads  from  young 
gipsy-girls,  who,  on  receiving  a  sixpence,  give 
ever  so  many  kisses  in  return,  saying,  "Take 
your  change  out  of  that;" — on  a  borrowed 
broken-knee'd  pon)',  with  a  switch-tail — a  de- 
vil for  galloping — not  only  attending  country- 
races  for  a  saddle  and  collar,  but  entering  for 
and  winning  the  prize — dancing  like  a  devil 
in  bams  at  kirns — seeing  his  blooming  partner 
home  over  the  blooming  heather,  most  perilous 
adventure  of  all  in  which  virgin-puberty  can 
be  involved — fighting  with  a  rival  in  corduroy 
breeches,  and  poll  shorn  beneath  a  caup,  till 
his  eyes  just  twinkle  through  the  swollen  blue 
— and,  to  conclude  "  this  strange  eventful  his- 
tory," once  brouglit  home  at  one  o'clock  in  the 
morring,  God  knows  whence  or  by  whom,  and 
found  by  the  shrieking  servant,  sent  out  to 
listen  for  him  in  the  moonlight,  dead-drunk  on 
the  gravel  at  the  gate  I 

Nay,  start  not,  parental  reader — nor,  in  the 
terror  of  anticipation,  send,  without  loss  of  a 
single  day,  for  your  son  at  a  distant  academy, 
mayhap  pursuing  even  such  another  career. 
Trust  thou  to  the  genial,  gracious,  and  benign 
via  7iie(liriitri.r  naturir.  What  though  a  few  clouds 
bedim  and  deform  "the  innocent  brightness  of 
the  new-born  day?"  Lo!  how  splendid  the 
meridian  ether!  What  though  the  frost  seem 
to  blight  the  beauty  of  the  budding  and  blow- 
ing rose  1  Look  how  she  revives  beneath  dew, 
rain,  and  sunshine,  till  your  eyes  can  even 
scarce  endure  the  lustre!  What  though  the 
waters  of  the  sullen  fen  seem  to  pollute  the 
snow  of  the  swan  ?  They  fall  off  from  her  ex- 
panded wings,  and,  pure  as  a  spirit,  she  soars 
away,  and  descends  into  her  own  silver  lake, 
stainless  as  the  water-lilies  floating  round  her 
breast.  .And  shall  the  immortal  soul  suffer 
lasting  contamination  from  the  transient 
chances  of  its  nascent  state — in  this,  less  fa- 
voured than  material  and  immaterial  things 
that  perish  ?  No — it  is  undergoing  endless 
transmigrations, — every  hour  a  being  differ- 
ent, yet  the  same — dark  stains  blotted  out — 
rueful  inscriptions  effaced — many  an  erasure 
of  impressions  once  thought  permanent,  but 
soon  altogether  forgotten — and  vindicating,  in 
the  midst  of  the  earthly  corruption  in  which  it 
is  immersed,  its  own  celestial  origin,  charac- 
ter, and  end,  often  flickering,  or  seemingly 
blown  out,  like  a  taper  in  the  wind,  but  all  at 
once  self-reillumined,  and  shinin<:  in  inextin- 
guishable and  self-fed  radiance — like  a  star  in 
heaven. 

Therefore,  bad  as  boys  too  often  are — and  a 
disgrace  to  the  mother  who  bore  them — the 
cradle  in  which  they  were  rocked — the  nurse 
by  whom  they  were  suckled — the  schoolmas- 
ter by  whom  they  were  flogged — and  the  hang- 
man by  whom  it  was  prophesied  they  were  tc 
be  executed — wait  patiently  for  a  few  years, 
and  you  will  see  them  all  transfigured— one 
into  a  preacher  of  such  winning  eloquence, 
that  he  almost  persuades  all  men  to  be  Chris- 
tians— another  into  a  parliamentar}-  orator, 
who  commands  the  applause  of  listening  sen- 
ates, and 

"Reads  his  history  in  a  nation's «ye«," 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET, 


11 


—one  into  a  painter,  before  whose  thunderous 
heavens  the  storms  of  Poussin  "  pale  their  inef- 
fectual fires" — another  into  a  poet  composing 
and  playing,  side  by  side,  on  his  own  peculiar 
harp,  in  a  concert  of  vocal  and  instrumental 
music,  with  Byron,  Scott,  and  Wordsworth — 
one  into  a  great  soldier,  who,  when  Welling- 
ton is  no  more,  shall,  for  the  freedom  of  the 
world,  conquer  a  future  Waterloo — another 
who  hoisted  his  flag  on  the  "  mast  of  some  tall 
amrairal,"  shall,  like  Eiiab  Harvey  in  the  Te- 
meraire,  lay  two  three-deckers  on  board  at 
once,  and  clothe  some  now  nameless  peak  or 
promontory  in  immortal  glory,  like  that  shining 
on  Trafalgar. 

Well,  then,  after  cat-killing  comes  Coursing. 
Cats  have  a  look  of  hares — ^kittens  of  leverets 
— and  they  are  all  called  Pussy.  The  terriers 
are  useful  still,  preceding  the  line  like  skirmish- 
ers, and  with  finest  noses  startling  the  mawkin 
from  bracken-bush  or  rush  bower,  her  sky- 
light garret  in  the  old  quarry,  or  her  brown 
study  in  the  brake.  Away  with  your  coursing 
on  Marlborough  downs,  where  huge  hares  are 
seen  squatted  from  a  distance,  and  the  sleek 
dogs,  disrobed  of  their  gaudy  trappings,  are  let 
slip  by  a  Tryer,  running  for  cups  and  collars 
before  lords  and  ladies,  and  squires  of  high 
and  low  degree — a  pretty  pastime  enough,  no 
doubt,  in  its  way,  and  a  splendid  cavalcade. 
But  will  it  for  a  mopient  compare  with  the 
sudden  and  all-unlooked-for  start  of  the  "auld 
witch"  from  the  bunweed-covered  lea,  when 
the  throat  of  every  pedestrian  is  privileged  to 
cry  "  halloo — halloo — halloo" — and  whipcord- 
tailed  greyhound  and  hairy  lurcher,  without 
any  invidious  distinction  of  birth  or  bearing, 
lay  their  deep  breasts  to  the  sward  at  the  same 
moment,  to  the  same  instinct,  and  brattle  over 
the  brae  after  the  disappearing  Ears,  laid  flat 
at  the  first  sight  of  her  pursuers,  as  with  re- 
troverted  eyes  she  turns  her  face  to  the  moun- 
tain, and  seeks  the  cairn  only  a  little  lower 
than  the  falcon's  nest. 

What  signifies  any  sport  in  the  open  air, 
except  in  congenial  scenery  of  earth  and 
heaven  ?  Go,  thou  gentle  Cockney!  and  angle 
in  the  New  River  ; — but,  bold  Englishman, 
come  with  us  and  try  a  salmon-cast  in  the  old 
Tay.  Go,  thou  gentle  Cockney  !  and  course  a 
suburban  hare  in  the  purlieus  of  Blackheath  ; 
— but,  bold  Englishman,  come  with  us  and 
course  an  animal  that  never  heard  a  city-bell, 
by  day  a  hare,  by  night  an  old  woman,  that 
loves  the  dogs  she  dreads,  and,  hunt  her  as 
you  will  with  a  leash  and  a  half  of  lightfoots, 
still  returns  at  dark  to  the  same  form  in  the 
turf-dike  of  th^  garden  of  the  mountain  cottage. 
The  children,  who  love  her  as  their  own  eyes 
—for  she  has  been  as  a  pet  about  the  family, 
summer  and  winter,  since  that  chubby-cheeked 
urchin,  of  some  five  years  old,  first  began  to 
swing  in  his  self-rocking  cradle — will  scarcely 
care  to  see  her  started — nay,  one  or  two  of  the 
wickedest  among  them  will  join  in  the  halloo; 
for  often,  ere  this,  "  has  she  cheated  the  very 
jowlers,  and  lauched  ower  her  shouther  at  the 
lang  dowgs  walloping  ahint  her,  sair  forfa- 
quhen,  up  the  benty  brae — and  it's  no  the  day 
that  she's  gaun  to  be  killed  by  Rough  Robin, 
or  smooth  Spring,  or  the  red  Bick,  or  the  hairy 


Lurcher — though  a'  fowr  be  let  lowse  on  her 
at  ance,  and  ye  surround  her  or  she  rise." 
What  are  your  great,  big,  fat,  lazy  English 
hares,  ten  or  twelve  pounds  and  upwards,  who 
have  the  food  brought  to  their  verj^  mouth  in 
preserves,  and  are  out  of  breath  with  five 
minutes'  scamper  among  themselves — to  the 
middle-sized,  hard-hipped,  wiry-backed,  steel- 
legged,  long-winded  mawkins  of  Scotland,  that 
scorn  to  taste  a  leaf  of  a  single  cabbage  in  the 
wee  moorland  j'ardie  that  shelters  them,  but 
prey  in  distant  fields,  take  a  breathing  every 
gloaming  along  the  mountain-breast,  untired 
as  }'oung  eagles  ringing  the  sky  for  pastime, 
and  before  the  dogs  seem  not  so  much  scour- 
ing for  life  as  for  pleasure,  with  such  an  air 
of  freedom,  liberty,  and  independence,  do  they 
fling  up  the  moss  and  cock  their  fuds  in  the 
faces  of  their  pursuers.  Yet  stanch  are  they 
to  the  spine — strong  in  bone,  and  sound  in 
bottom — see,  see  how  Tickler  clears  that 
twenty-feet  moss-hag  at  a  single  spang  like  a 
bird — tops  that  hedge  that  would  turn  any 
hunter  that  ever  stabled  in  Melton  Mowbray — 
and  then,  at  full  speed  northward,  moves  as 
upon  a  pivot  within  his  own  length,  and  close 
upon  his  haunches,  without  losing  a  foot,  off 
within  a  point  of  due  south.  A  kennel!  He 
never  was  and  never  will  be  in  a  kennel  all 
his  free  joyful  days.  He  has  walked  and  run 
— and  leaped  and  swam  about — at  his  own 
Avill,  ever  since  he  was  nine  days  old — and  he 
would  have  done  so  sooner  had  he  had  any 
eyes.  None  of  your  stinking  cracklets  for 
him — he  takes  his  meals  with  the  family,  sit- 
ting at  the  right  hand  of  the  master's  eldest 
son.  He  sleeps  in  any  bed  of  the  house  he 
chooses;  and,  though  no  Methodist,  he  goes 
every  third  Sunday  to  church.  That  is  the 
education  of  a  Scottish  greyhound — and  the 
consequence  is,  that  you  may  pardonably  mis- 
take him  for  a  deer  dog  from  Badenoch  or 
Lochaber,  and  no  doubt  in  the  world  that  he 
would  rejoice  in  a  glimpse  of  the  antlers  on 
the  weather  gleam, 

"  Whpre  the  hunter  of  deer  and  the  warrior  trode 
To  his  hills  that  encircle  the  sea." 

This  may  be  called  roughing  it — slovenly — 
coarse — rude — artless — unscientific.  But  we 
say  no — it  is  )'our  only  coursing.  Gods  !  with 
what  a  bounding  bosom  the  schoolboy  salutes 
the  dawning  of  the  cool — clear — crisp,  yes, 
crisp  October  morn,  (for  there  has  been  a 
slight  frost,  and  the  almost  leafless  hedgerows 
are  all  glittering  with  rime;)  and,  little  time 
lost  at  dress  or  breakfast,  crams  the  luncheon 
into  his  pouch,  and  away  to  the  Trysting-hill 
Farmhouse,  which  he  fears  the  gamekeeper 
and  his  grews  will  have  left  ere  he  can  run 
across  the  two  long  Scotch  miles  of  moor  be- 
tween him  and  his  joy !  With  steps  elastic, 
he  feels  flying  along  the  sward  as  from  a 
spring-board ;  like  a  roe,  he  clears  the  burns 
and  bursts  his  way  through  the  brakes  ;  pant- 
ing, not  from  breathlessness  but  anxiety,  he 
lightly  leaps  the  garden  fence  without  a  pole, 
and  lo,  the  green  jacket  of  one  huntsman,  the 
red  jacket  of  another,  on  the  plat  before  the 
door,  and  two  or  three  tall  rawboned  poachers 
— and  there  is  mirth  and  music,  fun  and  frolic, 
and  the  very  soul  of  enterprise,  adventure,  and 


EECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


12 

desperation,  in  that  word— while  tall  and 
graceful  stand  the  black,  the  brindled,  and  the 
yellow  breed,  with  keen  yet  quiet  eyes,  pro- 
phetic of  their  destined  prey,  and  though  mo- 
tionless now  as  stone  statues  of  hounds  at  the 
feet  of  Meleager,  soon  to  launch  like  lightning 
at  the  loved  halloo ! 

Out  comes  the  gudewife  with  her  own  bottle 
from  the  press  in  the  spence,  with  as  big  a 
belly  and  broad  a  bottom  as  her  own,  and  they 
are  no  trifle— for  the  worthy  woman  has  been 
making  much  beef  for  many  years,  is  more- 
over in  the  family  way,  and  surely  this  time 
there  will  be  twins  at  least— and  pours  out  a 
canty  caulker  for  each  crowing  crony,  begin- 
ning with  the  gentle,  and  ending  with  the 
semple,  that  is  our  and  herself;  and  better 
speerit  never  steamed  in  sma'  still.  She  offers 
another  with  "  hinny,"  by  way  of  Athole  brose ; 
but  it  is  put  off"  till  evening,  for  coursing  re- 
quires a  clear  head,  and  the  same  sobrietj' 
then  adorned  our  youth  that  now  dignifies  our 
old  age.  The  gudeman,  although  an  elder  of 
the  kirk,  and  with  as  grave  an  aspect  as  suits 
that  solemn  office,  needs  not  much  persuasion 
to  let  the  flail  rest  for  one  day,  anxious  though 
he  be  to  show  the  first  aits  in  the  market ;  and 
donning  his  broad  blue  bonnet,  and  the  short- 
est-tailed auld  coat  he  can  find,  and  taking  his 
kent  in  his  hand,  he  gruffly  gives  WuUy  his 
orders  for  a'  things  about  the  place,  and  sets 
off"  with  the  yonkers  for  a  holyday.  Not  a  man 
on  earth  who  has  not  his  own  pastime,  depend 
on't,  austere  as  he  may  look ;  and  'twould  be 
well  for  this  wicked  world  if  no  elder  in  it  had 
a  "sin  that  maist  easily  beset  him,"  worse 
than  what  Gibby  Watson's  wife  used  to  call 
his  "  awfu'  fondness  for  the  Grews  !" 

And  who  that  loves  to  walk  or  wander  over 
the  green  earth,  except  indeed  it  merely  be 
8ome  sonnetteer  or  ballad-monger,  if  he  had 
time  and  could  afford  it,  and  lived  in  a  toler- 
ably open  country,  would  not  keep,  at  the  very 
least,  three  greyhounds'?  No  better  eating 
than  a  hare,  though  old  blockhead  Barton — 
and  he  was  a  blockhead,  if  blockhead  ever 
there  was  one  in  this  world — in  his  Anatomy, 
chooses  to  call  it  melancholy  meat.  Did  he 
ever,  by  way  of  giving  dinner  a  fair  commence- 
ment, swallow  a  tureen  of  hare-soup  with  half 
a  peck  of  mealy  potatoes  1  If  ever  he  did — 
and  notwithstanding  called  hare  melancholy 
meat,  there  can  be  no  occasion  whatever  for 
now  wishing  him  any  further  punishment.  If 
he  never  did — then  he  was  on  earth  the  most 
unfortunate  of  men.  England — as  you  love 
us  and  yourself — cultivate  hare-soup,  without 
for  a  moment  dreaming  of  giving  up  roasted 
hare  well  stuffed  with  stuffing,  jelly  sauce  being 
handed  round  on  a  large  trencher.  But  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  melancholy  meat — neither 
fish,  flesh,  nor  fowl — provided  only  there  be 
enough  of  it.  Otherwise,  the  daintiest  dish 
drives  you  to  despair.  But  independently  of 
spit,  pot,  and  pan,  what  delight  in  even  dauner- 
ing  about  the  home  farm  seeking  for  a  hare  ? 
It  is  quite  an  art  or  science.  You  must  con- 
sult not  only  the  wind  and  weather  of  to-day, 
but  of  the  night  before — and  of  ever}'  day  and 
night  back  to  last  Sunday,  when  probably  you 
were  prevented  by  the  rain  from  going  to 


church.  Then  hares  shift  the  sites  of  their 
country  seats  everj'  season.  This  month  they 
love  the  fallow  field— that,  the  stubble;  this, 
you  will  see  them,  almost  without  looking  for 
them,  big  and  brown  on  the  bare  stony  upland 
lea — that,  you  must  have  a  hawk's  eye  in  your 
head  to  discern,  discover,  detect  them,  like 
birds  in  their  nests,  embowered  below  the 
bunweed  or  the  bracken ;  they  choose  to  spend 
this  week  in  a  wood  impervious  to  wet  or  wind 
— that,  in  a  marsh  too  plashy  for  the  plover ; 
now  you  may  depend  on  finding  madam  at 
home  in  the  sulks  within  the  very  heart  of  a 
bramble-bush  or  dwarf  black-thorn  thicket, 
while  the  squire  cocks  his  fud  at  you  from  the 
top  of  a  knowe  open  to  blasts  from  all  the 
airts; — in  short,  he  who  knows  at  all  times 
where  to  find  a  hare,  even  if  he  knew  not  one 
single  thing  else  but  the  way  to  his  mouth, 
cannot  be  called  an  ignorant  man — is  probably 
a  better-informed  man  in  the  long  run  than  the 
friend  on  his  right,  discoursing  about  the 
Turks,  the  Greeks,  the  Portugals,  and  all  thai 
sort  of  thing,  giving  himself  the  lie  on  every 
arrival  of  his  daily  paper.  We  never  yet 
knew  an  old  courser,  (him  of  the  Sporting 
.\nnals  included,)  who  was  not  a  man  both  of 
abilities  and  virtues.  But  where  were  we  1 — 
at  the  Trj-sting-hill  Farmhouse,  jocularly 
called  Hunger-ihcm-Out. 

Line  is  formed,  and  with  measured  steps  we 
march  towards  the  hills — for  we  ourselves  are 
the  schoolboy,  bold,  bright,  and  blooming  as 
the  rose — fleet  of  foot  almost  as  the  very  ante- 
lope— Oh  !  now,  alas  !  dim  and  withered  as  a 
stalk  from  which  winter  has  swept  all  the 
blossoms — slow  as  the  sloth  along  the  ground 
— spindle-shanked  as  a  lean  and  slippered 
pantaloon  ! 
"  O  hcavpn  !  that  from  our  bright  and  shinlnK  ycart 
Ape  wmilfl  hut  take  the  thitig*  youth  needed  not :" 

An  old  shepherd  meets  us  on  the  long  sloping 
rushy  ascent  to  the  hills — and  putting  his 
brown  withered  finger  to  his  gnostic  nose,  in- 
timates that  she  is  in  her  old  form  behind  the 
dike — and  the  noble  dumb  animals,  with 
pricked-up  ears  and  brandished  tail,  are  aware 
that  her  hour  is  come.  Plash,  plash,  through 
the  marsh,  and  then  on  tho  dr)-  furze  beyond, 
jou  sec  her  large  dark-brown  eyes — Soho, 
soho,  soho — Holloo,  halloo,  halloo— for  a  mo- 
ment the  seemingly  horned  creature  appears  to 
dally  with  the  danger,  and  to  linger  ere  she 
lays  her  lugs  on  her  shoulder,  and  away,  like 
thoughts  pursuing  thoughts — away  fly  hare 
and  hounds  towards  the  mountain. 

Stand  all  still  for  a  minute — for  not  a  bush 
the  height  of  our  knee  to  break  our  view — and 
is  not  that  brattling  burst  up  the  brae  "beauti- 
ful exceedingly."  and  sufficient  to  chain  in  ad- 
miration the  beatings  of  the  rudest  gazer's 
heart]  Yes;  of  all  beautiful  sights — none 
more,  none  so  much  so,  as  the  miraculous 
motion  of  a  four-footed  wild  animal,  changed 
at  once,  from  a  seeming  inert  sod  or  stone,  into 
flight  fleet  as  that  of  the  falcon's  wing !  In- 
stinct against  instinct!  fear  and  ferocity  in 
one  flight!  Pursuers  and  pursued  bound 
together,  in  ever)-  turning  and  twisting  of  their 
career,  by  the  operation  of  two  headlong  pas- 
sions !    Now  they  are  all  three  upon  her — and 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 


13 


she  dies !  No !  glancing  aside,  like  a  bullet 
from  a  wall,  she  bounds  almost  at  a  right  angle 
from  her  straight  course — and,  for  a  moment, 
seems  to  have  made  good  her  escape.  Shooting 
headlong  one  over  the  other,  all  three,  with 
erected  tails,  suddenly  bring  themselves  up — 
like  racing  barks  when  down  goes  the  helm, 
and  one  after  another,  bowsprit  and  boom 
almost  entangled,  rounds  the  buoy,  and  again 
bears  up  on  the  starboard  tack  upon  a  wind — 
and  in  a  close  line,  head  to  heel,  so  that  you 
might  cover  them  all  with  a  sheet — again,  all 
open-mouthed  on  her  haunches,  seem  to  drive, 
and  go  with  her  over  the  cliff. 

We  are  all  on  foot — and  pray  what  horse 
could  gallop  through  among  all  these  quag- 
mires, over  all  the  hags  in  these  peat-mosses, 
overall  the  water-cressy  and  puddocky  ditches, 
sinking  soft  on  hither  and  thither  side,  even  to 
the  two-legged  leaper's  ankle  or  knee — up  that 
hill  on  the  perpendicular  strewn  with  flint- 
shivcrs^-down  these  loose-hanging  cliffs — 
through  that  brake  of  old  stunted  birches  with 
stools  hard  as  iron — over  that  mile  of  quaking 
muir  where  the  plover  breeds — and — finally — 
up— up — up  to  where  the  dwarfed  heather  dies 
away  among  the  cinders,  and  in  winter  you 
might  mistake  a  flock  of  ptarmigan  fur  a  patch 
of  snow  ] 

The  thing  is  impossible — so  we  are  all  on 
foot — and  the  fleetest  keeper  that  ever  footed 
it  in  Scotland  shall  not  in  a  run  of  three  miles 
give  us  sixty  yards.  "  Ha  !  Peter  the  wild 
boy,  how  are  you  off  for  wind  T" — we  exult- 
ingiy  exclaim,  in  giving  Red-jacket  the  go-by 
on  the  bent.  But  see — see — they  are  bringing 
her  back  again  down  the  Red  Mount — glancing 
aside,  she  throws  them  all  three  out — yes,  all 
three,  and  few  enow  too,  though  fair  play  be  a 
jewel — and  ere  they  can  lecover,  she  is  a-head 
a  hundred  yards  up  the  hill.  There  is  a  beauti- 
ful trial  of  bone  and  bottom  !  Now  one,  and 
then  another,  takes  almost  imperceptibly  the 
lead;  but  she  steals  away  from  them  inch  by 
inch — beating  them  all  blind — and,  suddenly 
disappearing — Heaven  knows  how — leaves 
them  all  in  the  lurch.  With  out-lolling  tongues, 
hanging  heads,  panting  sides,  and  drooping 
tails,  they  come  one  by  one  down  the  steep, 
looking  somewhat  sheepish,  and  then  lie  down 
together  on  their  sides,  as  if  indeed  about  to 
die  in  defeat.  She  has  carried  away  her  cocked 
fud  unscathed  for  the  third  time,  from  Three 
of  the  Best  in  all  broad  Scotland — nor  can 
there  any  longer  be  the  smallest  doubt  in  the 
■world,  in  the  minds  of  the  most  skeptical,  that 
she  is — what  all  the  country-side  have  long 
known  her  to  be — a  Witch. 

From  cat-killing  to  Coursing,  we  have  seen 
that  the  transition  is  easy  in  the  order  of  na- 
ture— and  so  it  is  from  coursing  to  Fox-Hunt- 
ing — by  means,  however,  of  a  small  intefme- 
diate  step— the  Harriers.  Musical  is  a  pack 
of  harriers  as  a  peal  of  bells.  How  melo- 
diously they  ring  changes  in  the  woods,  and 
in  the  hollow  of  the  mountains !  A  level 
country  we  have  already  consigned  to  merited 
contempt,  (though  there  is  no  rule  without  an 
exception;  and  as  we  shall  see  by  and  by, 
there  is  one  too  here,)  and  commend  us,  even 
with  harriers,  to  the  ups  and  downs  of  the  pas- 


toral or  silvan  heights.    If  old  or  indolent,  take 
your  station  on  a  heaven-kissing  hill,  and  hug 
the  echoes  to  your  heart.     Or,  if  you  will  ride, 
then  let  it  be  on  a  nimble  galloway  of  some  four- 
teen hands,  that  can  gallop  a  good  pace  on  the 
road,  and  keep  sure  footing  on  bridle  paths,  ot 
upon  the    pathless  braes — and   by  judicious 
horsemanship,  you  may  meet  the  pack  at  many 
a  loud-mouthed  burst,  and  haply  be  not  far  out 
at  the  death.     But  the  schoolboy  and  the  shep- 
herd— and  the  whipper-in — as  each  hopes  for 
favour  from  his  own  Diana — let  them  all  be  on 
foot — and  have  studied  the  country  for  every 
imaginable  variety  that  can  occur  in  the  winter's 
campaign.     One  often  hears  of  a  cunning  old 
fox — but  the  cunningest  old  fox  is  a  simpletou 
to  the  most  guileless  young  hare.     What  deceit 
in  every  double  !     What  calculation  in  every 
squat !      Of  what  far  more  complicated  than 
Cretan  Labyrinth  is  the  creature,  now  hunted 
for  the  first  time,  sitting  in  the  centre  !  a  listen- 
ing the  baffled  roar  !      Now  into  the  pool  she 
plunges,  to  free  herself  from  the  fatal   scent 
that  lures  on  death.    Now  down  the   torrent 
course  she  runs  and  leaps,  to  cleanse  it  from 
her  poor  paws,  fur-protected  from  the  sharp 
flints  that  lame  the  fiends  that  so  sorely  beset 
her,  till  many  limp  along  in  their  own  blood. 
Now  along  the  coping  of  stone  walls  she  crawls 
and  scrambles — and  now  ventures  from   the 
wood  along  the  frequented  high-road,  heedless 
of  danger  from  the  front,  so  that  she  may  escape 
the  horrid  growling  in  the  rear.     Now  into  the 
pretty  little  garden  of  the  wayside,  or  even  the 
village  cot,  she  creeps,  as  if  to  implore  protec- 
tion from  the  innocent  children,  or  the  nursing 
mother.     Yes,  she  will  even  seek  refuge  in  the 
sanctuar)'  of  the  cradle.     The  terrier  drags  her 
out  from  below  a  tombstone,  and  she  dies  in 
the  churchyard.     The  hunters  come  reeking 
and  reeling  on,  we  ourselves  among  the  num- 
ber— and  to  the  winding  horn  thai  echoes  reply 
from  the  walls  of  the  house  of  worship — and 
now,  in  momentary  contrition, 

"Drops  a  sad,  serious  tear  upon  our  playful  pen  !* 

and  we  bethink  ourselves — alas !  all  in  vain 
for 

"JiTaturam  ezpcllas  furcd,  tamen  usque  recurret" — 

of  these  solemn  lines  of  the  poet  of  peace  and 
humanity : — 

"One  lesson  reader,  let  us  two  divide, 
Taught  by  what  nature  shows  and  what  conceals. 
Never  to  blend  our  pleasure  and  our  pride 
With  sorrow  of  the  meanest  thing  that  feels." 

It  is  next  to  impossible  to  reduce  fine  poetry 
to  practice — so  let  us  conclude  with  a  pane- 
gyric on  Fox-Hunting.  The  passion  for  this 
pastime  is  the  very  strongest  that  can  possess 
the  heart — nor,  of  all  the  heroes  of  antiquity, 
is  there  one  to  our  imagination  more  poetical 
than  Nimrod.  His  Avhole  character  is  given,  and 
his  whole  history,  in  two  words — Mighty  Hun- 
ter. That  he  hunted  the  fox  is  not  probable  ; 
for  the  sole  aim  and  end  of  his  existence  was 
not  to  exterminate — that  would  have  been  cut- 
ting his  own  throat — but  to  thin  man-devour- 
ing wild  beasts — the  Pards — with  Leo  at  their 
head.  But  in  a  land  like  this,  where  not  even 
a  wolf  has  existed  for  centuries — nor  a  wild 
boar — the  same  spirit  that  would  have  driven 
the  British  youth  on  the  tusk  and  paw  of  the 
B 


u 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


Lion  and  the  Tiger, mounts  them  in  scarlet  on 
such  steeds  as  never  neighed  before  the  flood, 
nor  "  summered  high  in  bliss"  on  the  sloping 
pastures  of  undeluged  Ararat— and  gathers 
them  together  in  gallant  array  on  the  edge  of 
the  cover, 

"  When  first  the  hunter's  startling  horn  is  heard 
Upon  the  golden  hills." 

What  a  squadron  of  cavalry  !  What  fiery  eyes 
and  flaming  nostrils— betokening  with  what 
ardent  passion  the  noble  animals  will  revel  in 
the  chase !  Bay,  brown,  black,  dun,  chestnut 
sorrel,  gray— of  all  shades  and  hues— and 
every  courser  distinguished  by  his  own  peculiar 
character  of  shape  and  form — yet  all  blending 
harmoniously  as  they  crown  the  mount;  so 
that  a  painter  would  only  have  to  group  and 
colour  them  as  they  stand,  nor  lose,  if  able  to 
catch  them,  one  of  the  dazzling  lights  or  deep- 
ening shadows  streamed  on  them  from  that 
sunny,  yet  not  unstormy  sky. 

You  read  in  books  of  travels  and  romances, 
of  Barbs  and  Arabs  galloping  in  the  desert — 
and  well  doth  Sir  Walter  speak  of  Saladin  at 
the  head  of  his  Saracenic  chivalry;  but  take 
our  word  for  it,  great  part  of  all  such  descrip- 
tions are  mere  falsehood  or  fudge.  Why  in  the 
devil's  name  should  dwellers  in  the  desert 
always  be  going  at  full  speed  1  And  how  can 
that  full  speed  be  any  thing  more  than  a  slow 
heavy  hand-gallop  at  the  best,  the  barbs  being 
up  to  the  belly  at  every  stroke  1  They  are 
always,  it  is  said,  in  high  condition — but  we, 
who  know  something  about  horse-flesh,  give 
that  assertion  the  lie.  They  have  seldom  any 
thing  either  to  eat  or  drink ;  they  are  as  lean 
as  church  mice;  and  covered  with  clammy 
sweat  before  they  have  ambled  a  league  from 
tne  tent.  And  then  such  a  set  of  absurd  riders, 
■with  knees  up  to  their  noses,  like  so  many 
tailors  riding  to  Brentford,  via  the  deserts  of 
Arabia!  Such  bits,  such  bridles,  and  such 
saddles  !  But  the  whole  set-out,  rider  and  rid- 
den, accoutrements  and  all,  is  too  much  for 
one's  gravity,  and  must  occasion  a  frequent 
laugh  to  the  wild  ass  as  he  goes  braying  un- 
harnessed by.  But  look  there !  .\rabian 
blood,  and  British  bone  !  Not  bred  in  and  in, 
to  the  death  of  all  the  fine  stnmg  animal  spirits 
— but  blood  intermingled  and  interfused  by 
twenty  crosses,  nature  exulting  in  each  succes- 
sive produce,  till  her  power  can  no  further  go, 
and  in  yonder  glorious  grey, 

"Gives  the  world  assurance  of  a  horse  :" 
Form  the  Three  Hundred  into  squadron,  or 
squadrons,  and  in  the  hand  of  each  rider  a 
sabre  alone,  none  of  your  lances,  all  bare  his 
breast  but  for  the  silver-laced  blue,  the  gorge- 
ous uniform  of  the  Hussars  of  England — con- 
found all  cuirasses  and  cuirassiers  ! — let  the 
trumpet  sound  a  charge,  and  ten  thousand  of 
the  proudest  of  the  Barbaric  chivalry  be  op- 
posed with  spear  and  scimitar— and  through 
their  snow-ranks  will  the  Three  Hundred  go 
like  thaw — splitting  them  into  dissolution  with 
the  noise  of  thunder. 

The  proof  of  the  pudding  is  in  the  eating  of 
It;  and  where,  we  ask,  were  the  British  cavalry 
ever  overthrown  ]  And  how  could  the  great 
north-country  horsc-coupers  perform  their  con- 


tracts, but  for  the  triumphs  of  the  Turf  1  Blood 
—blood  there  must  be,  either  for  strength,  or 
speed,  or  endurance.  The  ver)-  heaviest  ca- 
valry—the Life  Guards  and  the  Scots  Greys, 
and  all  other  dragoons,  must  have  blood.  But 
without  racing  and  fox-hunting,  where  could 
it  be  found  1  Such  pastimes  nerve  one  of  the 
arms  of  the  nation  when  in  battle  ;  but  for  thera 
'twould  be  palsied.  What  better  education, 
too,  not  only  for  a  horse,  but  his  rider,  before 
playing  a  bloodier  game  in  his  first  war  cam- 
paign ]  Thus  he  becomes  demicorpsed  with 
the  noble  animal ;  and  what  easy,  equable 
motion  to  him  is  afterwards  a  charge  over  a 
wide  level  plain,  with  nothing  in  the  way  but 
a  few  regiments  of  flying  Frenchmen !  The 
hills  and  dales  of  merrj'  England  have  been 
the  best  riding-school  to  her  gentlemen — her 
gentlemen  who  have  not  lived  at  home  at  ease 
— bi-t,  with  Paget,  and  Stewart,  and  Seymour, 
and  Cotton,  and  Somerset,  and  Vivian,  have 
left  their  hereditary  halls,  and  all  the  peaceful 
pastimes  pursued  among  the  silvan  scenery, 
to  try  the  mettle  of  their  steeds,  and  cross 
swords  with  the  vaunted  Gallic  chivair)';  and 
still  have  they  been  in  the  shock  victorious; 
witness  the  skirmish  that  astonished  Napoleon 
at  Saldanha — the  overthrow  that  uncrowned 
him  at  Waterloo ! 

"  Well,  do  you  know,  that,  aAer  all  you 
have  said,  Mr.  North,  I  cannot  understand  the 
passion  and  the  pleasure  of  fojt-hunting.  It 
seems  to  me  both  cruel  and  dangerous." 

Cruelty !  Is  their  cruelty  in  laying  the  rein 
on  their  necks,  and  delivering  them  up  to  the 
transport  of  their  high  condiuon — for  every 
throbbing  vein  is  visible — at  the  first  full  burst 
of  that  maddening  cry,  and  letting  loose  to  their 
delight  the  living  thunderbolts!  Danger! 
What  danger  but  of  breaking  their  own  legs, 
necks,  or  backs,  and  those  of  their  riders  ! 
.\nd  what  right  have  you  to  complain  of  that, 
lying  all  your  length,  a  huge  hulking  fellow, 
snoring  and  snorting  half-asleep  on  a  ^ofa, 
sufticunt  to  sicken  a  whole  street!  What 
though  it  be  but  a  smallish,  reddish-brown, 
sharp-nosed  animal,  with  pricked-up  ears,  and 
passionately  fond  of  poultry,  that  they  pursue  ! 
After  the  first  Tally-ho,  Reynard  is  rarely  seen, 
till  he  is  run  in  upon^-once,  perhaps,  in  the 
whole  run,  skirting  a  wood,  or  crossing  a  com- 
mon. It  IS  an  Idea  that  is  pursued,  on  a  whirl- 
wind of  horses,  to  a  storm  of  canine  music — 
worthy,  both,  of  the  largest  lion  that  ever  leaped 
among  a  band  of  Moors,  sleeping  at  midinght 
by  an  extinguished  fire  on  the  African  sands. 
There  is,  we  verily  believe  it.  nothing  Foxy  in 
the  Fancy  of  one  man  in  all  that  glorious  field 
of  Three  Hundred.  Once  ofl^and  away — while 
wood  and  welkin  rines — and  nothing  is  felt — 
nothing  is  imaged  in  that  hurricane  flight, 
but  scorn  of  all  obstructions,  dikes,  ditches, 
drains,  brooks,  palings,  canals,  rivers,  and  all 
the  impediments  reared  in  the  way  of  so  many 
rejoicing  madmen,  by  nature,  art,  and  science, 
in  an  inclosed,  cultivated,  civilized,  and  Chris- 
tian country.  There  they  g.>— prince  and  peer, 
baronet  and  squire — the  nobility  and  gentry  of 
England,  the  flower  of  the  men  of  the  earth, 
each  on  such  a  steed  as  Pollux  never  reined, 
nor  Philip's  warlike  son — for  could  we  imagine 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 


16 


Bucephalus  here,  ridden  by  his  own  tamer, 
Alexander  would  be  thrown  out  during  the 
very  first  burst,  and  glad  to  find  his  way  dis- 
mounted to  a  village  alehouse  for  a  pail  of 
meal  and  water.  Hedges,  trees,  groves,  gar- 
dens, orchards,  woods,  farmhouses,  huts,  halls, 
mansions,  palaces,  spires,  steeples,  towers,  and 
temples,  all  go  wavering  by,  each  demigod 
seeing,  or  seeing  them  not,  as  his  winged  steed 
skims  or  labours  along,  to  the  swelling  or 
sinking  music,  now  loud  as  a  near  regimental 
band,  now  faint  as  an  echo.  Far  and  wide 
over  the  country  are  dispersed  the  scarlet  run- 
ners— and  a  hundred  villages  pour  forth  their 
admiring  swarms,  as  the  main  current  of  the 
chase  ruars  by,  or  disparted  runlets  float  wea- 
ried and  all  astray,  lost  at  last  in  the  perplexing 
woods.  Crash  goes  the  top-timber  of  the  five- 
barred  gate — away  over  the  ears  flies  the  ex- 
rough-rider  in  a  surprising  somerset — after  a 
succession  of  stumbles,  down  is  the  gallant 
Grey  on  knees  and  nose,  making  sad  work 
among  the  fallow — Friendship  is  a  fine  thing, 
and  the  story  of  Damon  and  Pythias  most 
affecting  indeed — but  Py lades  eyes  Orestes  on 
his  back  sorely  drowned  in  sludge,  and  tenderly 
leaping  over  him  as  he  lies,  claps  his  hands 
to  his  ear,  and  with  a  "  hark  forward,  tantivy  !" 
leaves  him  to  remount,  lame  and  at  leisure — 
and  ere  the  fallen  has  risen  and  shaken  him- 
self, is  round  the  corner  of  the  white  village- 
church,  down  the  dell,  over  the  brook  and 
close  on  the  heels  of  the  straining  pack,  all  a- 
yell  up  the  hill  crowned  by  the  .Stjuirc's  Folly. 
"Every  man  for  himself,  and  God  for  us  all," 
is  the  devout  and  ruling  apothegm  of  the  day. 
If  death  befall,  what  wonder  ?  since  man  and 
horse  arc  mortal ;  but  death  loves  better  a  wide 
soft  bed  with  quiet  curtains  and  darkened  win- 
dows in  a  still  room,  the  clergyman  in  one 
corner  with  his  prayers,  and  the  physician  in 
another  with  his  pills,  making  assurance 
doubly  sure,  and  preventing  all  possibility  of 
the  dying  Chnstian's  escape.  Let  oak  branch 
smite  the  too  slowly  stooping  skull,  or  rider's 
back  not  timely  levelled  with  his  steed's ;  let 
faithless  bank  give  way,  and  bur>-  in  the  brook  ; 
let  hidden  drain  yield  to  fore  feet  and  work  a 
sudden  wreck ;  let  old  coal-pit,  with  brier}' 
mouth,  betray  ;  and  roaring  river  bear  down 
man  and  horse,  to  cliff's  unscalable  by  the  very 
Welch  goat ;  let  duke's  or  earl's  son  go  sheer 
over  a  quarry  twenty  feet  deep,  and  as  many 
high ;  yet  "  Without  stop  or  stay,  down  the 
rocky  way,"  the  hunter  train  flows  on;  for  the 
music  grows  fiercer  and  more  savage — lo  !  all 
that  remains  together  of  the  pack,  in  far  more 
dreadflil  madness  than  hydrophobia,  leaping 
out  of  their  skins,  under  insanity  from  the 
scent,  for  Vulpes  can  hardly  now  make  a 
crawl  of  it;  and  ere  he,  they,  whipper-in,  or 
any  one  of  the  other  three  demoniacs,  have 
time  to  look  in  one  another's  splashed  faces, 
he  is  torn  into  a  thousand  pieces,  gobbled  up 
n  the  general  growl ;  and  smug,  and  smooth, 
and  dry,  and  warm,  and  cozey,  as  he  was  an 
hour  and  twenty-five  minutes  ago  exactly,  in 
his  furze  bush  in  the  cover — he  is  now  piece- 
meal in  about  thirty  distinct  stomachs ;  and  is 
he  not,  pray,  well  ofl"  for  sepulture  1 


FYTTE  SECOND. 

We  are  always  unwilling  to  speak  of  our- 
selves, lest  we  should  appear  egotistical — for 
egotism  we  detest.  Yet  the  sporting  world 
must  naturally  be  anxious  to  know  something 
of  our  early  historj' — and  their  anxiety  shall 
therefore  be  now  assuaged.  The  truth  is,  that 
we  enjoyed  some  rare  advantages  and  oppor- 
tunities in  our  boyhood  regarding  field  sports, 
and  grew  up,  even  from  that  first  great  era  in 
every  Lowlander's  life,  Breeching-day,  not  only 
a  fisher  but  a  fowler ;  and  it  is  necessary  that 
we  enter  into  some  interesting  details. 

There  had  been  from  time  immemorial,  it 
was  understood,  in  the  Manse,  a  duck-gun  of 
very  great  length,  and  a  musket  that,  according 
to  an  old  tradition,  had  been  out  both  in  the 
Seventeen  and  Forty-five.  There  were  ten 
boys  of  us,  and  we  succeeded  by  rotation  to 
gun  or  musket,  each  boy  retaining  possession 
for  a  single  day  only ;  but  then  the  shooting 
season  continued  all  the  year.  They  must 
have  been  of  admirable  materials  and  work- 
manship; for  neither  of  them  so  much  as  once 
burst  during  ihe  Seven  Years'  War.  The  mus- 
ket, who,  we  have  often  since  thought,  must 
surely  rather  have  been  a  blunderbuss  in  dis- 
guise, was  a  perfect  devil  for  kicking  when 
she  received  her  discharge ;  so  much  so  indeed, 
that  it  was  reckoned  creditable  for  the  smaller 
boys  not  to  be  knocked  down  by  the  recoil. 
She  had  a  very  wide  mouth — and  was  thought 
by  us  "an  awfu'  scatierer;"  a  qualification 
which  we  considered  of  the  very  highest  merit. 
She  carried  any  thing  we  choose  to  put  iuto 
her — there  still  being  of  all  her  performances 
a  loud  and  favourable  report — balls,  buttons, 
chucky-stanes,  slugs,  or  hail.  She  had  but 
two  faults — she  had  got  addicted,  probably  in 
early  life,  to  one  habit  of  burning  priming,  and 
to  another  of  hanging  fire ;  habits  of  which  it 
was  impossible,  for  us  at  lea.st,  to  break  her  by 
the  most  assiduous  hammering  of  many  a  new 
series  of  flints;  but  such  was  the  high  place 
she  justly  occupied  in  the  aflection  andadmira 
tion  of  us  all,  that  faults  like  these  did  not  in  th«! 
least  detract  from  her  general  character.  Our 
delight,  when  she  did  absolutely  and  positively 
and  bond  fide  go  off,  was  in  proportion  to  the 
comparative  rarity  of  that  occurrence  ;  and  as 
to  hanging  fire — why  we  used  to  let  her  take 
her  own  time,  contriving  to  keep  her  at  the 
level  as  long  as  our  strength  sufficed,  eyes  shut 
perhaps,  teeth  clenched,  face  girning,  and  head 
slightly  averted  over  the  right  shoulder,  till 
Muckle-mou'd  Meg,  who,  like  most  other  Scot- 
tish females,  took  things  leisurely,  went  off"  at 
last  with  an  explosion  like  the  blowing  up  of 
a  rock. 

The  "  Lang  gun,"  again,  was  of  much  gen- 
tler disposition,  and,  instead  of  kicking,  ran 
into  the  opposite  extreme  on  being  let  off",  in- 
clining forwards  as  if  she  would  follow  the 
shot.  We  believe,  however,  this  apparent 
peculiarity  arose  from  her  extreme  length, 
which  rendered  it  difficult  for  us  to  hold  her 
horizontally — and  hence  the  muzzle  being  at- 
tracted earthward,  the  entire  gun  appeared  to 
leave  the  shoulder  of  the  Shooter.    That  such 


16 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


is  the  true  theory  of  the  phenomenon  seems  to 
be  proved  by  this— that  when  the  "  Lang  Gun" 
was,  in  the  act  of  firing,  laid  across  the  shoul- 
ders of  two  boys  standing  about  a  yard  the  one 
before  the  other,  she  kicked  every  bit  as  well 
us  the  blunderbuss.  Her  lock  was  of  a  very 
peculiar  construction.  It  was  so  contrived  that, 
When  on  full  cock,  the  dog-head,  as  we  used  to 
call  it,  stood  back  at  least  seven  inches,  and 
unless  the  flint  was  put  in  to  a  nicety,  by  pull- 
ing the  trigger  you  by  no  means  caused  any 
uncovering  of  the  pan,  but  things  in  general 
remained  in  statu  quo — and  there  was  perfect 
silence.  She  had  a  worm-eaten  stock  into 
which  the  barrel  seldom  was  able  to  get  itself 
fairly  inserted  ;  and  even  with  the  aid  of  cir- 
cumvoluting  twine, 'twas  always  coggly.  Thus, 
too,  the  vizy  {Jnglice  sight)  generally  inclined 
unduly  to  one  side  or  the  other,  and  was  the 
cause  of  all  of  us  every  day  hitting  and  hurting 
objects  of  whose  existence  even'we  were  not 
aware,  till  alarmed  by  the  lowing  or  the  gal- 
loping of  cattle  on  the  hills  ;  and  we  hear  now 
the  yell  of  an  old  woman  in  black  bonnet  and 
red  cloak,  who  shook  her  staff  at  us  like  a  witch, 
with  the  blood  running  down  the  furrows  of  her 
face,  and  with  many  oaths  maintained  that  she 
was  murdered.  The  "  Lang  Gun"  had  cer- 
tainly a  strong  vomit — and,  with  slugs  or 
swan-shot,  was  dangerous  at  two  hundred 
yards  to  any  living  thing.  Bob  Howie,  at 
that  distance  arrested  the  career  of  a  mad  dog 
— a  single  slug  having  been  sent  through  the 
eye  into  the  brain.  We  wonder  if  one  or  both 
of  those  companions  of  our  boyhood  be  yet 
alive — or,  like  many  other  great  guns  that 
have  since  made  more  noise  in  the  world, 
fallen  a  silent  prey  to  the  rust  of  oblivion. 

Not  a  boy  in  the  school  had  a  game  certifi- 
cate— or,  as  it  was  called  in  the  parish — "  a 
leeshance."  Nor,  for  a  year  or  two,  was  such 
a  permit  necessary;  as  we  confined  ourselves 
almost  exclusively  to  sparrows.  Not  that  we 
had  any  personal  animosity  to  the  sparrow  in- 
dividually— on  the  contrary,  we  loved  him, 
and  had  a  tame  one — a  fellow  of  infinite  fancy 
— with  comb  and  wattles  of  crimson  cloth  like 
a  gamecock.  But  thviir  numbers,  without 
number  numberless,  seemed  to  justify  the  hu- 
manest  of  boys  in  killing  any  quantity  of 
sprauchs.  Why,  they  would  sometimes  settle 
on  the  clipped  half-thorn  and  half-beech  hedge 
of  the  Manse  garden  in  myriads,  midge-like ; 
and  then  out  any  two  of  us,  whose  day  it  hap- 
pened' to  be,  used  to  sally  with  Muckle-mou'd 
Meg  and  the  Lang  Gun,  charged  two  hands  and 
a  finger ;  and  with  a  loud  shout,  startling  them 
from  their  roost  like  the  sudden  casting  of  a 
swarm  of  bees,  we  let  drive  into  the  whir — a 
shower  of  feathers  was  instantly  seen  swim- 
ming in  the  air,  and  flower-bed  and  onion  bed 
covered  with  scores  of  the  mortally  wounded 
old  cocks  with  black  heads,  old  hens  with 
brown,  and  the  pride  of  the  eaves  laid  low  be- 
fore their  first  crop  of  peas  !  Never  was  there 
such  a  parish  for  sparrows.  You  had  but  to 
fling  a  stone  into  any  stack-yard,  and  up  rose 
a  sprauch-shower.  The  thatch  of  every  cottage 
was  drilled  by  them  like  honey-combs.  House- 
spouts  were  of  no  use  in  rainv  weather— for 
they  were  all  choked  up  by  spra'uch-nests.     At 


each  particular  barn-door,  when  the  farmerj 
were  at  work,  you  might  have  thought  you  saw 
the  entire  sparrow  population  of  the  parish 
Seldom  a  Sabbath,  during  pairing,  building, 
breeding,  nursing,  and  training  season,  could 
you  hear  a  single  syllable  of  the  sermon  foi 
their  sakes,  all  a-huddle  and  a-chirp  in  the  bel 
fry  and  among  the  old  loose  slates.  On  every 
stercoraceous  deposit  on  coach,  cart,  or  bridle 
road,  they  were  busy  on  grain  and  pulse  ;  and. 
in  spite  of  cur  and  cat,  legions  embrowned 
every  cottage  garden.  Emigration  itself  ia 
many  million  families  would  have  left  no  per- 
ceptible void;  and  the  ineiterminable  multi- 
tude would  have  laughed  at  the  Plague. 

The  other  small  birds  of  the  parish  began  to 
feel  their  security  from  our  shot,  and  sung  their 
best,  unscared  on  hedge,  bush,  and  tree.  Per- 
haps, too,  for  sake  of  their  own  sweet  strains, 
wt  spared  the  lyrists  of  Scotland,  the  linnet 
and  the  lark,  the  one  in  the  yellow  broom,  the 
other  beneath  the  rosy  cloud — while  there  was 
ever  a  sevenfold  red  shield  before  Robin'.s 
breast,  whether  flitting  silent  as  a  falling  leaf, 
or  trilling  his  autumnal  lay  on  the  rigging  or 
pointed  gable-end  of  barn  or  brye.  Now  and 
tnen  the  large  bunting,  conspicuous  on  a  top- 
twig,  and  proud  of  his  rustic  psalmody,  tempted 
his  own  doom— or  the  cunning  stone-chat, 
glancing  about  the  old  dikes  usually  shot  at 
in  vain — or  yellow-hammer,  under  the  ban  of 
the  national  superstition,  with  a  drop  of  the 
devil's  blood  beneath  his  pretty  crest,  pretty  in 
spite  of  that  cruel  crecd^-or  green-finch,  too 
rich  in  plumage  for  his  poorer  song— ^r  shilfa, 
the  beautiful  nesl-builder,  shivering  his  white- 
plumed  wings  in  shade  and  sunshine,  in  y>y 
the  most  rapturous,  in  grief  the  most  despairing 
of  all  the  creatures  of  Uie  air— or  fedpole,  ba- 
lanced on  the  down  of  the  thistle  or  flower  of 
the  bunwecd  on  the  old  clovery  lea— ^r,  haply 
twice  seen  in  a  season,  the  very  goldfinch 
himself,  a  radiant  and  gorgeous  spirit  brought 
on  the  breeze  from  afar,  and  worthy,  if  only 
slightly  wounded,  of  being  enclosed  within  a 
silver  cage  from  Fairy  Land. 

But  we  waxed  more  ambitious  as  we  grew 
old — and  then  wo  to  the  rcokcr)-  on  the  elm- 
tree  grove  !  Down  dropt  the  dark  denizens  in 
dozens,  rebounding  with  a  thud  and  a  skraigh 
from  the  velvet  moss,  which  under  that  um- 
brage formed  firm  floor  for  Titania's  feet — 
while  others  kept  dangling  dead  or  dying  by 
the  claws,  cheating  the  crusted  pie,  and  all  the 
blue  skies  above  were  intercepted  by  cawing 
clouds  of  distracted  parents,  now  dipping  down 
in  despair  almost  within  a  shot,  and  now,  as 
if  sick  of  this  world,  soaring  away  up  into  the 
very  heavens,  and  disappearing  to  return  no 
more — till  sunset  should  bring  silence,  and  the 
night  air  roll  off  the  horrid  smell  of  sulphur 
from  the  desolated  bowers;  and  then  indeed 
would  they  come  all  flying  back  upon  their 
strong  instinct,  like  black-sailed  barks  before 
the  wind,  some  from  the  depth  of  far-off  fir- 
woods,  where  they  had  lain  quacking  at  the 
ceaseless  cannonade,  some  from  the  furrows 
of  the  new-braided  fields  aloof  on  the  uplands, 
some  from  deep  dell  close  at  hand,  and  some 
from  the  middle  of  the  moorish  wilderness. 

Happiest  of   all    human   homes,  beautiful 


CHRISTOPHER  EN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 


17 


Craig-Hall !  For  so  even  now  dost  thou  ap- ! 
pear  to  be — in  the  rich,  deep,  mellow,  green  : 
light  of  imagination  trembling  on  tower  and 
tree — art  thou  yet  undilapidated  and  undeca3'ed, 
in  thy  old  manorial  solemnity  almost  majesti- 
cal,  though  even  then  thou  hadst  long  been 
tenanted  but  by  an  humble  farmer's  family — 
people  of  low  degree  ?  The  evening-festival 
of  the  First  Day  of  the  Rooks — naj',  scoff  not 
at  such  an  anniversary — was  still  held  in  thy 
ample  kitchen — of  old  the  bower  of  brave  lords 
and  ladies  bright — while  the  harper,  as  he  sung 
his  song  of  love  or  war,  kept  his  eyes  fixed  on 
her  who  sat  beneath  the  deas.  The  days  of 
chivalry  were  gone — and  the  days  had  come 
of  curds  and  cream,  and,  preferred  by  some 
people  though  not  by  us,  of  cream-cheese.  Old 
men  and  old  women,  widowers  and  widows, 
yet  all  alike  cheerful  and  chatty  at  a  great  age, 
for  often  as  they  near  the  dead,  how  more  life- 
like seem  the  living!  Middle-as^ed  men  and 
middle-aged  women,  husbands  and  wives,  those 
sedate,  with  hair  combed  straight  on  their  fore- 
heads, sun-burnt  faces,  and  horny  hands  esta- 
blished on  their  knees — these  serene,  with 
countenances  many  of  them  not  unlovely — 
comely  all — and  with  arms  decently  folded 
beneath  their  matronly  bosoms — as  they  sat 'in 
their  holyilay  dresses,  feeling  as  if  the  season 
of  youth  had  hardly  yet  flown  by,  or  were,  on 
such  a  merry  meeting,  fur  a  blink  restored ! 
Boys  and  virgins — those  bold  even  in  their 
bashfulncss — these  blushing  whenever  eSes 
met  eyes — nor  would  they — nor  could  they — 
have  spoken  in  the  hush  to  save  their  souls  ; 
yet  ere  the  evening  star  arose,  many  a  pretty 
maiden  had,  down  looking  and  playing  with 
the  hem  of  her  garment,  sung  linnet-like  her 
ain  favourite  auld  Scottish  sang  !  and  many  a 
sweet  sang  even  then  delighted  Scotia's  spirit, 
though  Robin  Bums  was  but  a  youth — walking 
mute  anidng  the  wild-flowers  on  the  moor — 
nor  aware  of  the  immortal  melodies  soon  to 
breathe  from  his  impassioned  heart! 

Of  all  the  year's  holydays,  not  even  except- 
ing the  First  of  May,  this  was  the  most  delight- 
ful. The  First  of  May,  longed  for  so  passion- 
ately from  the  first  peep  of  the  primrose, 
sometimes  came  deformed  with  mist  and 
cloud,  or  cheerless  with  whistling  winds, 
or  winter-like  with  a  sudden  fall  of  snow. 
And  thus  all  our  hopes  were  dashed — the 
roomy  hay-wagon  remained  in  its  shed — 
the  preparations  made  fur  us  in  the  distant 
moorland  farmhouse  were  vain — the  fishing- 
rods  hung  useless  on  the  nails — and  discon- 
solate schoolboys  sat  moping  in  corners,  sorry, 
ashamed,  and  angry  with  Scotland's  springs. 
But  though  the  "leafy  month  of  June"  be  fre- 
quently showery,  it  is  almost  alwaj's  sunny  too. 
Every  half  hour  there  is  such  a  radiant  blink 
that  the  youns:  heart  sings  aloud  for  joy  ;  sum- 
mer rain  makes  the  hair  grow,  and  hats  are 
little  or  no  use  towards  the  Longest  Day  ;  there 
is  something  cheerful  even  in  thunder,  if  it 
be  not  rather  too  near ;  the  lark  has  not  yet 
ceased  altogether  to  sing,  for  he  soars  over 
his  second  nest,  unappalled  beneath  the  sablest 
cloud ;  the  green  earth  repels  from  her  reful- 
gent bosom  the  blackest  shadows,  nor  will 
suffer  herself  to  be  saddened  in  the  fulness  and 


brightness  of  her  contentment ;  through  the 
heaviest  flood  the  blue  skies  will  still  be 
making  their  appearance  with  an  impatient 
smile,  and  all  the  riv'ers  and  burns,  with  the 
multitude  of  their  various  voices,  sing  praises 
unto  Heaven. 

Therefore,  bathing  our  feet  in  beauty,  we 
went  bounding  over  the  flowery  fields  and 
broomy  braes  to  the  grove-girdled  Craig-Hall. 
During  the  long  noisy  daj',  we  thought  not  of 
the  coming  evening,  happy  as  we  knew  it  was 
to  be  ;  and  during  the  long  and  almost  as  noisy 
evening,  we  forgot  all  the  pastime  of  the  da3% 
Weeks  before,  had  each  of  us  engaged  his 
partner  for  the  first  country  dance,  by  right 
his  own  when  supper  came,  and  to  sit  close  to 
him  with  her  tender  sid",  with  waist  at  first 
stealthily  arm-encirclej,  and  at  last  boldly  and 
almost  with  proud  d. splay.  In  the  churchyard, 
before  or  after  Sabbath-service,  a  word  whis- 
pered into  the  ear  of  blooming  and  blushing 
rustic  sufficed ;  or  if  that  opportunity  failed, 
the  angler  had  but  to  step  into  her  father's 
burn-side  cottage,  and  with  the  contents  of  his 
basket  leave  a  tender  request,  and  from  be 
hind  the  gable-end  carry  away  a  word,  a  smile 
a  kiss,  and  a  waving  farewell. 

Many  a  high-roofed  hall  have  we,  since  those 
days,  seen,  made  beautiful  with  festoons  and 
garlands,  beneath  the  hand  of  taste  and  genius 
decorating,  for  some  splendid  festival,  the  abode 
of  the  noble  expecting  a  still  nobler  guest.  But 
oh  !  what  pure  bliss,  and  what  profound,  was 
then  breathed  into  the  bosom  of  boyhood  from 
that  glorious  branch  of  hawthorn,  in  the  chim- 
ney— itself  almost  a  tree,  so  thick — so  deep — 
so  rich  its  load  of  blossoms — so  like  its  fra- 
grance to  something  breathed  from  heaven — 
and  so  transitor}''  in  its  sweetness  too,  that  as 
she  approached  to  inhale  it,  down  fell  many  a 
snow-flake  to  the  virgin's  breath — in  an  hour 
all  melted  quite  away  !  No  broom  that  now-a- 
days  grows  on  the  brae,  so  yellow  as  the  broom 
— the  golden  broom — the  broom  that  seemed  still 
to  keep  the  hills  in  sunlight  long  after  the  sun 
himself  had  sunk — the  broom  in  which  we  first 
found  the  lintwhite's  nest — and  of  its  petals, 
more  precious  than  pearls,  saw  framed  a 
wreath  for  the  dark  hair  of  that  dark-eyed 
girl,  an  orphan,  and  melancholy  even  in  her 
merriment — dark-haired  and  dark-eyed  indeed, 
but  whose  forehead,  whose  bosom,  were  yet 
whiter  than  the  driven  snow.  Greenhouses — 
conservatories  —  orangeries  —  are  exquisitely 
balmy  still — and,  in  presence  of  these  strange 
plants,  one  could  believe  that  he  had  been 
transported  to  some  rich  foreign  clime.  But 
now  we  carry  the  burden  of  our  years  along- 
with  us — and  that  consciousness  bedims  the 
blossoms,  and  makes  mournful  the  balm,  as 
from  flowers  in  some  fair  burial-place,  breath- 
ing of  the  tomb.  But  oh  !  that  Craig-Hall  haw- 
thorn !  and  oh  !  that  Craig-Hall  broom  !  they 
send  their  sweet  rich  scent  so  far  into  the 
hushed  air  of  memory,  that  all  the  weary  worn- 
out  weaknesses  of  age  drop  from  us  like  a 
garment,  and  even  now — the  flight  of  that  swal- 
lowseems  more  aerial — more  alive  with  blisshis 
clay-built  nest — the  ancient  long-ago  blue  of  the 
sky  returns  to  heaven — not  for  many  a,  many 
a  long  year  have  we  seen  so  fair — so  frail — so 
b2 


18 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


transparent  and  angel-mantle-looking  a  cloud ! 
The  very  viol  speaks — the  very  dance  responds 
in  Craig-Hall :  this— this  is  the  very  festival 
of  the  First  Day  of  the  Rooks— Mary  Mather, 
the  pride  of  the  parish — the  county — the  land 
— ihe  earth — is  our  partner — and  long  mayest 
thou,  O  moon !  remain  behind  thy  cloud — 
when  the  parting  kiss  is  given — and  the  love- 
,etter,  at  that  tenderest  moment,  dropped  into 
her  bosom ! 

But  we  have  lost  the  thread  of  our  discourse, 
and  must  pause  to  search  for  it,  even  like  a 
spinster  of  old,  in  the  disarranged  spindle  of 
one  of  those  pretty  little  wheels  now  heard  no 
more  in  the  humble  ingle,  hushed  by  machi- 
nery clink-clankiug  with  power-looms  in  every 
town  and  city  of  the  land.  Another  year,  and 
we  often  found  ourselves — alone — or  with  one 
chosen  comrade ;  for  even  then  we  began  to 
have  our  sympathies  and  antipathies,  not  only 
with  roses  and  lilies,  or  to  cats  and  cheese,  but 
with  or  to  the  eyes,  and  looks,  and  foreheads, 
and  hair,  and  voices,  and  motions,  and  silence, 
and  rest  of  human  beings,  loving  them  with  a 
perfect  love — we  must  not  say  hating  them  with 
a  perfect  hatred — alone  or  with  a  friend,  among 
the  mists  and  marshes  of  moors,  in  silent  and 
stealthy  search  of  the  solitary  curlew,  that  is, 
the  Whawp !  At  first  sight  of  his  long  bill 
aloft  above  the  rushes,  we  could  hear  our  heart 
beating  quick  time  in  the  desert;  at  the  turn- 
ing of  his  neck,  the  body  being  yet  still,  our 
heart  ceased  to  beat  altogether — and  we  grew 
sick  with  hope  when  near  enough  to  see  the 
wild  beauty  of  his  eye.  Unfolded,  like  a 
thought,  was  then  the  brown  silence  of  the 
shy  creature's  ample  wings — and  with  a 
warning  cry  he  wheeled  away  upon  the  wind, 
unharmed  by  our  ineflectual  hail,  seen  falling 
far  short  of  tlie  deceptive  distance,  while  his 
mate  that  had  lain  couched — perhaps  in  her 
nest  of  eggs  or  young,  exposed  yet  hidden — 
within  killing  range,  half-running,  half-tly- 
ing,  flapped  herself  into  flight,  simulating 
lame  leg  and  wounded  wing;  and  the  two 
disappearing  together  behind  the  hills,  left 
us  in  our  vain  reason  thwarted  by  instinct, 
to  resume  with  live  hopes  rising  out  of  the 
ashes  of  the  dead,  our  daily-disappointed 
quest  over  the  houseless  mosses.  Yet  now 
and  then  to  our  steady  aim  the  bill  of  the 
whawp  disgorged  blood — and  as  we  felt  the 
feathers  in  our  hand,  and  from  tip  to  tip  eyed 
the  outstretched  wings.  Fortune,  we  felt,  had 
■no  better  boon  to  bestow,  earth  no  greater  tri- 
umph. 

Hush— stoop— kneel — crawl — for  by  all  our 
hopes  of  mercy — a  heron — a  heron  !  An  eel 
dangling  across  his  bill !  And  now  the  water- 
serpent  has  disappeared !  From  morning  dawn 
hath  the  fowl  been  fishing  here— perhaps  on 
that  very  stone— for  it  is  one  of  those  days  when 
eels  are  a-roaming  in  the  shallows,  and  the 
heron  knows  that  they  are  as  likely  to  pass  by 
that  stone  as  any  other— from  morning  dawn 
—and  'tis  now  past  meridian,  half-past  two ! 
Be  propitious,  oh  ye  Fates  !  and  never— never 
-—shall  he  again  fold  his  wings  on  the  edge  of 
his  gaping  nest,  on  the  trees^that  overtop  the 
only  tower  left  of  the  old  castle.  Another  eel  • 
and  we  too  can  crawl  silent  as  the  sinuous  i 


serpent.  Flash  !  Bang  !  over  he  goes  dead-  • 
no,  not  dead — but  how  unlike  that  unavailing 
flapping,  as  head  over  heels  he  goes  spinning 
over  the  tarn,  to  the  serene  unsettling  of  him- 
self from  sod  or  stone,  when,  his  hunger  sated, 
and  his  craw  filled  with  fish  for  his  far-off 
brood,  he  used  to  lift  his  blue  bulk  into  the  air, 
and  with  long  depending  legs,  at  first  floated 
away  like  a  wearied  thing,  but  soon,  as  his 
plumes  felt  the  current  of  air  homewards 
flowing,  urged  swifter  and  swifter  his  easy 
course — laggard  and  lazy  no  more — leaving 
leagues  behind  him,  ere  you  had  shifted  your 
motion  in  watching  his  cloudlike  career,  soon 
invisible  among  the  woods  ! 

The  disgorged  eels  are  returned — some  of 
them  alive — to  their  native  element — the  mud. 
And  the  dead  heron  floats  away  before  small 
winds  and  waves  into  the  middle  of  the  tarn. 
Where  is  he — the  matchless  Newfoundlander 
— nomine  gaudens  Fno,  because  white  as  the 
froth  of  the  sea  1  Off  with  a  colley.  So— stript 
with  the  first  intention,  we  plunge  from  a 
rock,  and, 

"Thoueh  in  the  scowl  of  heaven,  the  tam 
Cruwd  itark  us  wc  are  swinimin)!," 

Draco-like,  breast-high,  we  stem  the  surge, 
and  with  the  heron  floating  before  us,  return 
to  the  heather-fringed  shore,  and  give  three 
cheers  that  startle  the  echoes,  asleep  from 
year's  end  to  year's  end,  in  the  Grey-Linn 
Cairn. 

Into  the  silent  twilight  of  many  a  wild  rock- 
and-river  scene,  beautiful  and  bewildering  as 
the  fairy  work  of  sleep,  will  he  find  himself 
brought  who  knows  where  to  seek  the  heron 
in  all  his  solitary  haunts.  For  often  when  the 
moors  are  storm-swept,  and  his  bill  would  be 
battled  by  the  waves  of  tarn  and  loch,  he  sails 
away  from  his  swingin<,Mrec,  and  through 
some  open  siade  dipping  down  to  the  secluded 
stream,  alights  within  the  calm  chasm,  sind 
folds  his  wings  in  the  breezeless  air.  The 
clouds  are  driving  fast  aloft  in  a  carrj'  from 
the  sea — but  they  are  all  reflected  in  that  pel- 
lucid pool — so  perfect  the  clilf-guardcd  repose. 
A  better  day — a  better  hour — a  better  minute 
for  fishing  could  not  have  been  chosen  by  Mr. 
Heron,  who  is  already  swallowing  a  par. 
Another — and  another — but  something  falls 
from  the  rock  into  the  water;  and  suspicious, 
though  unalarmed,  he  leisurely  addresses  him- 
self to  a  short  flight  up  the  channel — round 
that  tower-like  cliff  standing  strangely  by 
itself,  with  a  crest  of  sell-sown  flowering 
shrubs;  and  lo!  another  vista,  if  possible,  just 
a  degree  more  silent — more  secluded — more 
solitary — beneath  the  mid-day  night  of  woods  ! 
To  shoot  thee  there — would  be  as  impious  as 
to  have  killed  a  sacred  Ibis  stalking  in  the 
shade  of  an  Egyptian  temple.  Yet  it  is  fortu- 
nate for  thee — folded  up  there,  as  thou  art,  as 
motionless  as  thy  sitting-stone — that  at  this 
moment  we  have  no  fire-arms — for  we  had 
heard  of  a  fish-like  trout  in  that  ver>-  pool,  and 
this — O  Heron — is  no  gun  but  a  rod.  Thou 
believest  thyself  to  be'  in  utter  solitude — no 
sportsman  but  thyself  in  the  chasm — for  the 
otter,  thou  knowest,  loves  not  such  very  rocky 
rivers;  and  fish  with  bitten  shoulder  seldom 
lies   here— that  epicure's    tasted    prsj.    I'ct 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 


19 


within  ten  yards  of  thee  lies  couched  thy 
enemy,  who  once  had  a  design  upon  thee,  even 
in  the  very  egg.  Our  mental  soliloquy  disturbs 
not  thy  watchful  sense — for  the  air  stirs  not 
when  the  soul  thinks,  or  feels,  or  fancies  about 
man,  bird,  or  beast.  We  feel,  0  Heron  !  that 
there  is  not  only  humanity — but  poetry,  in  our 
being.  Imagination  haunts  and  possesses  us 
in  our  pastimes,  colouring  them  even  with 
serious — solemn — and  sacred  light — and  thou 
assuredly  hast  something  priest-like  and  an- 
cient in  thy  look — and  about  thy  light-blue 
plume  robes,  which  the  very  elements  admire 
and  reverence — the  waters  wetting  them  not — 
nor  the  winds  ruffling — and  moreover  we  love 
thee — Heron — for  the  sake  of  that  old  castle, 
beside  whose  gloom  thou  utteredst  thy  first 
feeble  cry!  A  Ruin  nameless,  traditionless — 
sole,  undisputed  property  of  Oblivion  ! 

Hurra  ! — Heron — hurra !  whj',  that  was  an 
awkward  tumble — and  very  nearly  had  we 
hold  of  thee  by  the  tail !  Didst  thou  take  us 
for  a  water-kelpie  1  A  fright  like  that  is 
enough  to  leave  thee  an  idiot  all  the  rest  of 
thy  life.  'Tis  a  wonder  thou  didst  not  go  into 
fits — but  thy  nerves  must  be  sorely  shaken — 
and  what  an  account  of  this  adventure  will 
certainly  be  shrieked  unto  thy  mate,  to  the 
music  of  the  creaking  boughs  !  Not,  even 
wert  thou  a  secular  bird  of  ages,  wouldst  thou 
ever  once  again  revisit  this  dreadful  place. 
For  fear  has  a  wondrous  memory  in  all  dumb 
creatures — and  rather  wouldst  thou  see  thy  nest 
die  of  famine,  than  seek  for  fish  in  this  man- 
monster-haunted  pool !     Farewell!  farewell! 

Many  arc  the  hundreds  of  hill  and  mountain 
lochs  to  us  as  familiarly  known,  round  all 
their  rushy  or  rocky  margins,  as  that  pond 
there  in  the  garden  of  Buchanan  Lodge.  That 
pond  has  but  one  goose  and  one  gander,  and 
nine  goslings — about  half-a-dozen  trouts,  if  in- 
deed they  have  not  sickened  and  died  of  Nos- 
talgia, missing  in  the  stillness  the  gurgle  of 
Iheir  native  Tweed — and  a  brace  of  perch, 
now  nothing  but  prickle.  But  the  lochs — the 
hill,  the  mountain  lochs  now  in  our  mind's 
e3-e  and  our  mind's  ear, — heaven  and  earth ! 
Ihe  bogs  are  black  with  duck,  teal,  and  widgeon 
— up  there  "comes  for  food  or  play"  to  the 
holla  of  the  winds,  a  wedge  of  wild  geese, 
piercing  the  marbled  heavens  with  clamour — 
and  lo  !  in  the  very  centre  of  the  mediterranean, 
the  Roj'al  Familv  of  the  Swans  !  Up  springs 
the  silver  sea-trout  in  the  sunshine — see  Sir 
Humphrey! — a  salmon — a  salmon  fresh  run 
in  love  and  glory  from  the  sea  ! 

For  how  many  admirable  articles  are  there 
themes  in  the  above  short  paragraph !  Duck, 
teal,  and  widgeon,  wild-geese,  swans !  And 
first,  duck,  teal,  and  widgeon.  There  they  are, 
all  collected  together,  without  regard  to  party 
politics,  in  their  very  best  attire,  as  thick  as 
the  citizens  of  Edinburgh,  therr  wives,  sweet- 
hearts, and  children,  on  the  Sfelton  Hill,  on 
the  first  day  of  the  king's  visit  to  Scotland.  As 
thick,  but  not  so  steady — for  what  swimming 
about  in  circles — what  ducking  and  diving  is 
there ! — all  the  while  accompanied  with  a  sort 
of  low,  thick,  gurgling,  not  unsweet,  nor  un- 
musical quackery,  the  expression  of  the  intense 
joy  of  feeding,  freedom,  and  play.    Oh !  Muc- 


kle-mou'd  Meg!  neither  thou  nor  the  "Lang 
Gun"  are  of  any  avail  here — for  that  old  drake> 
who,  together  -with  his  shadow,  on  which  he 
seems  to  be  sitting,  is  almost  as  big  as  a  boat 
in  the  water,  the  outermost  landward  sentinel, 
near  as  he  seems  to  be  in  the  deception  of  the 
clear  frosty  air,  is  yet  better  than  three  hun- 
dred 3'ards  from  the  shore — and,  at  safe  dis- 
tance, cocks  his  eye  at  the  fowler.  There  is 
no  boat  on  the  loch,  and  knowing  that,  how 
templing  in  its  unapproachable  reeds  and 
rushes,  and  hut-crested  knoll — a  hut  built  per- 
haps by  some  fowler,  in  the  olden  time — yon 
central  Isle !  But  be  still  as  a  shadow — fo-r 
lo  !  a  batch  of  Whig-seceders,  paddling  all  by 
themselves  towards  that  creek — and  as  surely 
as  our  name  is  Christopher,  in  another  quarter 
of  an  hour,  they  will  consist  of  killed,  wounded, 
and  missing.  On  our  belly — with  unhatted 
head  justpeeringover the  kno we — and Muckle- 
mou'd  Meg  slowly  and  softly  stretched  out  on 
the  rest,  so  as  not  to  rustle  a  windle-strae,  we 
lie  motionless  as  a  mawkin,  till  the  coterie 
collects  together  for  simultaneous  dive  down 
to  the  aquatic  plants  and  insects  of  the  fast- 
shallowing  bay;  and,  just  as  they  are  upon  the 
turn  with  their  tails,  a  single  report,  loud  as  a 
volley,  scatters  the  unsparing  slugs  about  their 
doups,  and  the  still  clear  water,  in  sudden  dis- 
turbance, is  afloat  with  scattered  feathers,  and 
stained  with  blood. 

Now  is  the  time  for  the  snow-white,  here 
and  there  ebon-spotted  Fro — who  with  burning 
eyes  has  lain  couched  like  a  spaniel,  his  quick 
breath  ever  and  anon  trembling  on  a  passionate 
whine,  to  bounce  up,  as  if  discharged  by  a 
catapulta,  and  first  with  immense  and  enor- 
mous high-and-far  leaps,  and  then,  fleet  as  any 
greyhound,  with  a  breast-brushing  brattle  down 
the  brae,  to  dash,  all  fours,  like  a  flying  squir- 
rel fearlessly  from  his  tree,  many  yards  into 
the  bay  with  one  splashing  and  momentarily 
disappearing  spang,  and  then,  head  and 
shoulders  and  broad  line  of  back  and  rudder 
tail,  all  elevated  above  or  level  with  the  wavy 
water  line,  to  mouth  first  that  murdered  maw- 
sey  of  a  mallard,  lying  as  still  as  if  she  had 
been  dead  for  years,  with  her  round,  fat,  brown 
bosom  towards  heaven — then  that  old  Drake, 
in  a  somewhat  similar  posture,  but  in  more 
gorgeous  apparel,  his  belly  being  of  a  pale 
gray,  and  his  back  delicately  pencilled  and 
crossed  with  numberless  waved  dusky  lines — 
precious  prize  to  one  skilled  like  us  in  the 
angling  art — next— nobly  done,  glorious  Fro— 
that  cream  colour  crowned  widgeon,  with 
bright  rufus  chestnut  breast,  separated  from 
the  neck  by  loveliest  waved  ash-brown  and 
white  lines,  while  our  mind's  eye  feasteth  on 
the  indescribable  and  changeable  green  beauty- 
spot  of  his  wings — and  now,  if  we  mistake  not, 
a  Golden  Eye,  best  described  by  his  name — 
finally,  that  exquisite  little  duck  the  Teal;  yes, 
poetical  in  its  delicately  pencilled  spots  as  an 
Indian  shell,  and  when  kept  to  an  hour,  roasted 
to  a  minute,  gravied  in  its  own  wild  richness, 
with  some  few  other  means  and  appliances  to 
boot,  carved  finely— most  finely — by  razor-like 
knife,  in  a  hand  skilful  to  dissect  and  cunning 
to  divide— tasted  by  a  tongue  and  palate  both 
healthily  pure  as  the  dewy  petal  of  a  morning 


20 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


rose  -swallowed  by  a  gullet  felt  gradually  to 
be  extending  itself  in  its  intense  delight— and 
received  into  a  stomach  yawning  with  greed 
and  gratitude,— oh  !  surely  the  thrice-blessed 
of  all  web-footed  birds;  the  apex  of  Apician 
luxury;  and  able,  were  any  thing  on  the  face 
of  this  feeble  earth  able,  to  detain  a  soul,  on 
the  very  brink  of  fate,  a  short  quarter  of  an 
hour  from  an  inferior  Elysium ! 

How  nobly,  like  a  craken  or  sea-serpent, 
Fro  reareth  his  massy  head  above  the  foam, 
his  gathered  prey  seized— all  four— by  their 
limber  necks,  and  brightening,  like  a  bunch  of 
flowers,  as  they  glitter  towards  the  shore! 
With  one  bold  body-shake,  felt  to  the  point  of 
each  particular  hair,  he  scatters  the  water 
from  his  coat  like  mist,  reminding  one  of  that 
glorious  line  in  Shakspeare, 

"Like  dewdrops  from  the  Lion's  mane," 
advancing  with  sinewy  legs  seemingly  length- 
ened by  the  drenching  flood,  and  dripping  tail 
stretched  out  in  all  its  broad  longitude,  with 
hair  almost  like  white  hanging  plumes— mag- 
nificent as  tail  of  the  Desert-Born  at  the  head 
of  his  seraglio  in  the  Arabian  Sands.  Halfway 
his  master  meets  his  beloved  Fro  on  the  slope ; 
and  first  proudly  and  haughtily  pausing  to 
mark  our  eye,  and  then  humbly,  as  beseemelh 
one  whom  nature,  in  his  boldest  and  brightest 
bearing,  hath  yet  made  a  slave — he  lays  the 
ofiering  at  our  feet,  and  having  felt  on  his 
capacious  forehead  the  approving  pressure  of 
our  hand, 

"Wliile,  like  Ilie  murmur  of  n  drojim. 
He  hears  us  breathe  his  name," 

he  suddenly  flings  himself  round  with  a  wheel 
of  transport,  and  in  many  a  widening  circle 
pursues  his  own  uncontrollable  ecstasies  with 
whirlwind  speed ;  till,  as  if  utterly  joy-ex- 
hausted, he  brings  his  snow-while  bulk  into 
dignified  repose  on  a  knoll,  that  very  moment 
illuminated  by  a  burst  of  sunshine  ! 

Not  now — as  fades  upon  our  pen  the  solemn 
light  of  the  dying  day — shall  we  dare  to  decide, 
whether  or  not  Nature — 0  most  matchless 
creature  of  thy  kind  ! — gave  ihee,  or  gave  thee 
not,  the  gift  of  an  immortal  soul !  Better  such 
creed — fond  and  foolish  though  it  may  be — yet 
scarcely  unscriptural,  for  in  each  word  of 
scripture  there  are  many  meanings,  even  when 
each  sacred  syllable  is  darkest  to  be  read, — 
better  such  creed  than  that  of  the  atheist  or 
skeptic,  distracted  ever  in  his  seemingly  sullen 
apathy,  by  the  dim,  dark  duom  of  dust."  Belter 
that  Fro  sliould  live,  than  that  Newton  should 
die— for  ever.  What  though  the  benevolent 
Howard  devoted  his  days  to  visit  the  dungeon's 
gloom,  and  by  intercession  Avith  princes,  to  set 
the  prisoners  free  from  the  low  damp-dripping 
stone  roof  of  the  deep-dug  cell  beneath  the 
foundation  rocks  of  the  citadel,  to  the  high 
dewdropping  vault  of  heaven,  too,  too  daz- 
zlmgly  illumined  by  the  lamp  of  theinsuflerable 
sun!  There  reason  triumphed— those  were 
the  works  of  glorified  humanity.  But  thou— 
a  creature  of  mere  instinct— according  to 
Descartes,  a  machine,  an  automaton— hadsi 
yet  a  constant  light  of  thought  and  of  nficction 
in  thine  eyes— nor  wert  thou  without  some 
Rhmmenng  and  mysterious  notions— and  what 


more  have  we  ourselves? — of  life  and  of 
death !  Why  fear  to  say  that  thou  wert  di- 
vinely commissioned  and  inspired — on  that 
most  dismal  and  shrieking  hour,  when  little 
Harry  Seymour,  that  bright  English  boy, 
"whom  ail  that  looked  on  loved,"  entangled 
among  the  cruel  chains  of  those  fair  water- 
lilies,  all  so  innocently  yet  so  murderously 
floating  round  him,  was,  by  all  standing  or 
running  about  theie  with  clenched  hands,  or 
kneeling  on  the  sod— given  up  to  inextricable 
death  1  We  were  no:  present  to  save  the  dear 
boy,  who  had  been  delivered  to  our  care  as  to 
that  of  an  elder  brother,  by  the  noble  lady  who, 
in  her  deep  widow's  weeds,  kissed  her  sole 
darling's  sunny  head,  and  disappeared.  We 
were  not  present— <ir  by  all  that  is  holiest  in 
heaven  or  on  earth — our  arms  had  been  soon 
around  thy  neck,  when  Uiou  wert  seemingly 
about  to  perish  ! 

But  a  poor,  dumb,  despised  dog — nothing,  as 
some  sav,  but  animated  dust — was  there — and 
without  shout  or  signal — for  all  the  Christian 
creatures  were  alike  helpless  in  their  despair 
— shot  swift  as  a  sunbeam  over  the  deep,  and 
by  those  gulden  tresses,  sinking  and  brighten- 
ing through  the  wave,  brought  the  noble  child 
ashore,  and  stood  over  him,  as  if  in  joy  and 
sorrow,  lying  loo  like  death  on  the  sand  !  And 
when  little  Harn,'  opened  his  glazed  eyes,  and 
looked  liewildercd  on  all  the  faces  around — 
and  then  fainted,  and  revived  and  fainted  again 
— till  at  last  he  came  to  dim  recollection  of 
this  world  on  the  bosom  of  the  physician 
brought  thither  with  incomprehensible  speed 
from  his  dwelling  afar  ofl' — thou  didst  lick  his 
cold  white  hands  and  blue  face,  with  a  whine 
that  struck  awful  pity  into  all  heart5,  and  thou 
didst  follow  him — one  of  the  group — as  he  was 
borne  along — and  frisking  and  gambolling  no 
more  all  that  day,  gf^ntly  didst  thou  lay  thyself 
down  at  the  feet  of  his  little  bed,  and  watch 
there  unsleeping  all  niirht  long!  Fur  the  boy 
knew  that  Gcd  had  employed  one  of  his  lowly 
creatures  to  save  him — and  besecched  that  he 
might  lie  there  to  be  looked  at  by  the  light  of 
the  taper,  till  he  himself,  as  the  pains  went 
away,  niisht  fall  asleep  !  And  we,  the  watchers 
by  his  bed-sid**,  heard  him  in  his  dreams  mcn- 
tionins  the  creature's  name  in  his  prayers. 

Yet  at  times — O  Fro^thou  wert  a  sad  dog 
indeed — neither  to  bind  nor  to  hold — for  thy 
h\ooi\  was  soon  set  a-boil,  and  thou — like  Ju- 
lius Carsar — and  Demetrius  Poliorcetes — and 
Alexander  the  Great — nnil  many  other  ancient 
and  modem  kin?s  and  heroes — thou  wert  the 
slave  of  thy  passions.  No  Scipio  wert  thou 
with  a  Spanish  captive.  Often — in  spile  of 
threatening  eye  and  uplifted  ihong — uplifted 
only,  for  thou  went'st  unflogged  to  thy  grave — 
didst  thou  disappear  for  days  at  a  time — as  if 
lost  or  dead.  Rumours  of  thee  were  brought 
to  the  kirk  by  shepherds  from  the  remotest 
hills  in  the  parish — most  confused  and  contra- 
dictory— but,  when  collected  and  compared, 
all  agreeing  in  this — that  thou  wert  living,  and 
life-like,  and  life-imparting,  and  after  a  season 
from  thy  travels  to  return  ;  and  return  thou  still 
didst — wearied  often  and  wo-begone — purpled 
thy  snow-white  curling — and  thy  broad  breast 
torn,  not  disfigured,  by  honourable  wounds.  For 


CHRISTOPHER  L\  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 


Bl 


never  yet  saw  we  a  fighter  like  thee.  Up  on 
thy  hind  legs  in  a  moment,  like  a  growling 
Polar  monster,  with  thy  fore-paws  round  thy 
foeman's  neck,  bull-dog,  colly,  mastiff,  or  grej- 
hound,  and  down  with  him  in  a  moment,  with 
as  much  ease  as  Cass,  in  the  wrestling-ring  at 
Carlisle,  would  throw  a  Bagman,  and  then  wo 
to  the  throat  of  the  downfallen,  for  thy  jaws 
were  shark-like  as  they  opened  and  shut  with 
their  terrific  tusks,  grinding  through  skin  and 
sinew  to  the  spine. 

Once,  and  once  only — bullied  out  of  all  en- 
durance by  a  half-drunken  carrier — did  we  con- 
sent to  let  thee  engage  in  a  pitched  battle  with 
a  mastiff  victorious  in  fifty  fights — a  famous 
shankcr — and  a  throltler  beyond  all  compare. 
It  was  indeed  a  bloody  business — now  growl- 
ing along  the  glawr  of  the  road — a  hairj'  hurri- 
cane— now  snorting  in  the  suffocating  ditch — 
now  fair  play  on  the  clean  and  clear  crown  of 
the  causey — now  rolling  over  and  over  through 
a  chance-open  white  little  gate,  into  a  cottage- 
garden — now  separated  by  choking  them  both 
with  a  chord — now  brought  out  again  with 
savage  and  fiery  eyes  to  the  scratch  on  a  green 
plat  round  the  sign-board-swinging  tree  in  the 
middle  of  the  village — auld  women  in  their 
mutches  crying  out,  "  Shame !  wharc's  the 
minister!" — young  women,  with  combs  in  their 
pretty  heads,  blinking  with  pale  and  almost 
weeping  faces  from  low-lintelled  doors — chil- 
dren crowding  for  sight  and  safety  on  the 
louping-on-slone — and  loud  cries  ever  and  anon 
at  each  turn  and  eddy  of  the  fight,  of  "  Well 
done,  Fro,  well  done,  Fro — "^ee  how  he  worries 
his  windpipe — well  done,  Fro !"  for  Fro  was 
the  delight  and  glory  of  the  whole  parish,  and 
the  honour  of  all  its  inhabitants,  male  and  fe- 
male, was  felt  to  be  staked  on  the  is^ue — 
while  at  intervals  was  heard  the  harsh  hoarse 
voice  of  the  carriers  and  his  compeers, cursing 
and  swearing  in  triumph  in  a  many-oathed 
language  peculiar  to  the  race  that  drive  the 
broad-wheeled  wagons  wiih  the  high  canvas 
roofs,  as  the  mi^ht  of  Tecgcr  prevailed,  and 
the  indomitable  Fro  seemed  to  be  on  his  last 
legs  beneath  a  grip  of  the  jugular,  and  then 
stretched  motionless  and  passive — in  defeat  or 
death.  A  mere  ruse  to  recover  wind.  Like 
unshorn  Samson  starting  from  his  sleep,  and 
snapping  like  fired  (lax  the  vain  bands  of  the 
Philistines,  Fro  whawmled  Toeger  off,  and 
twisting  round  his  head  in  spite  of  the  grip  on 
the  jugular,  the  skin  stretching  and  giving  way 
in  a  ghastly  but  unfclt  wound,  he  suddenly 
seized  with  all  his  tusks  his  antagonist's  eye, 
and  bit  it  clean  out  of  the  socket.  A  yowl  of 
unendurable  pain — spouting  of  blood — sick- 
ness— swooning — tumbling  over — and  death. 
His  last  fight  is  over!  His  remaining  eye 
glazed — his  protruded  tongue  bitten  in  anguish 
by  his  own  grinding  teeth — his  massy  hind 
legs  stretched  out  with  a  kick  like  a  horse — 
his  short  tail  stiffens — he  is  laid  out  a  grim 
corpse — flung  into  a  cart  tied  behind  the 
wagon — and  off  to  the  tan-yard. 

No  shouts  of  victory — but  stern,  sullen,  half- 
ashamed  silence — as  of  guilty  things  after 
the  perpetration  of  a  misdeed.  Still  glaring 
savagely,  ere  yet  the  wrath  of  fight  has  sub- 
sided in  his  heart,  and  going  and  returning  to 


the  blood)^  place,  uncertain  whether  or  not  his 
enemy  were  about  to  return,  Fro  finally  lies 
down  at  some  distance,  and  with  bloody  flews 
keeps  licking  his  bloody  legs,  and  with  long 
darting  tongue  cleansing  the  mire  from  his 
neck,  breast,  side,  and  back — a  sanguinary 
spectacle  !  He  seems  almost  insensible  to  our 
caresses,  and  there  is  something  almost  like 
upbraiding  in  his  victorious  eyes.  Now  that 
his  veins  are  cooling,  he  begins  to  feel  the  pain 
of  his  wounds — many  on,  and  close  to  vital 
parts.  Most  agonizing  of  all — all  his  four 
shanks  are  tusk-pierced,  and,  in  less  than  ten 
minutes,  he  limps  away  to  his  kennel,  lame  as 
if  riddled  by  shot — 

"  Heu  quantum  mutatus  ab  illo 
Hectore  1" 

gore-besmeared  and  dirt-draggled — an  hour 
ago  serenely  bright  as  the  lily  in  June,  or  the 
April  snow.  The  huge  wagon  moves  away 
out  of  the  clachan  without  its  master,  who, 
ferocious  from  the  death  of  the  other  brute  he 
loved,  dares  the  whole  school  to  combat.  Off 
rty  a  dozen  jackets — and  a  devil's  dozen  of 
striplings  from  twelve  past  to  going  sixteen — 
firmly  wedged  together  like  the  Macedonian 
Phalanx — are  yelling  for  the  fray.  There  is 
such  another  shrieking  of  women  as  at  the 
taking  of  Troy.  But 
"The  Prince  of  Mffirns  slept  forth  before  the  crowd, 
And,  Carter,  challenged  you  to  single  fight!" 

Bob  Howie,  who  never  yet  feared  the  face  of 
clay,  and  had  too  great  a  heart  to  suffer  mere 
children  to  combat  the  strongest  and  most 
unhappy  man  in  the  whole  countrj' — stripped 
to  the  buff;  and  there  he  stands,  with 

"An  eye  like  Mars,  to  threaten  and  command;" 

shoulders  like  Atlas — breast  like  Hercules — 
and  arms  like  Vulcan.  The  heart  of  Benja- 
min the  wagoner  dies  within  him — he  accepts 
the  challenge  for  a  future  daj- — and  retreating 
backwards  to  his  clothes,  receives  a  right- 
hander as  from  a  sledge-hammer  on  the  temple, 
that  fells  him  like  an  ox.  The  other  carters 
all  close  in,  but  are  sent  spinning  in  all  direc- 
tions as  from  the  sails  of  a  windmill.  Ever 
as  each  successive  lout  seeks  the  earth,  we 
savage  school-boys  rush  in  upon  him  in  twos, 
and  threes,  and  fours,  basting  and  battering 
him  as  he  bawls;  at  this  very  crisis — so  fate 
ordained — are  seen  hurrying  down  the  hill 
from  the  south,  leaving  their  wives,  sweet- 
hearts, and  asses  in  the  rear,  with  coal-black 
hair  and  sparkling  eyes,  brown  brawny  legs, 
and  clenched  iron  fists  at  the  end  of  long  arms, 
swinging  flail-like  at  all  times,  and  more  than 
now,  ready  for  the  fray,  a  gang  of  Gipsies ! 
while — beautiful  coincidence! — up  the  hill 
from  the  north  come  on,  at  double-quick  time, 
an  awkward  squad  of  as  grim  Milesians  as 
ever  bunied  a  pike  in  a  Protestant.  Nor  ques- 
tion nor*reply;  but  in  a  moment  a  general 
melee.  Men  at  work  in  the  hay-fields,  who 
would  not  leave  their  work  for  a  dog-fight,  fling 
down  scythe  and  rake,  and  over  hedges  int(? 
the  high-road,  a  stalwart  reinforcement.  Weav- 
ers leap  from  their  treddles — doff  their  blue 
aprons,  and  out  into  the  air.  The  red-cowled 
tailor  pops  his  head  through  a  skylight,  and 
next  moment  is  in  the  street.  The  butcher 
strips  his  long  light-blue  linen  coat,  to  engage 


S2 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


a  Paddy ;  and  the  smith,  ready  for  action— for  I 
the  huge  arms  of  Burniwind  are  always  bare—  j 
with  a  hand-ower-hip  delivery,  makes  the  head 
of  the  king  of  the  gipsies  ring  like  an  anvil,  j 
There  has  been  no  marshalling  of  forces — yet  | 
lo !  as  if  formed  in  two  regular  lines  by  the  ^ 
Adjutant  himself  after  the  first  tuilzie,  stand  ^ 
the  carters,  the  gipsies,  and  the  Irishmen,  op-  j 
posed  to  Bob  Howie,  the  butcher,  the  smith, 
the  tailor,  the  weaver,  the  hay-makers,  and  the 
boys  from  the  manse— the  latter  drawn  up  cau- 
tiously, but  not  cowardlv,  in  the  rear.     What  a 
twinkling  of  fists  and  shillelas !  what  bashed  and 
bloody  noses!    cut  blubber  lips— cheekbones 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  rest  of  the  face,  and, 
through  sudden  black  and  blue  tumefactions, 
men's  changed  into  pigs'  eyes !    And  now  there 
is  also  rugging  of  caps  and  mutches  and  hair, 
"femineo  ululatu,"  for  the  Egyptian  Amazons 
bear  down  like  furies  on  the  glee'd  widow  that 
keeps  the   change-house,   half-witted   Slioosy 
that  sells  yellow  sand,  and  Davie  Donald's  dun 
daughter,  commonly  called  Spunkie.     What 
shrieking  and  tossing  of  arms,  round  the  whole 
length  and  breadth  of  the  village!     Where  is 
Simon  Andrew  the  constable  ]     Where  is  auld 
Robert  Maxwell  the  ruling  elder?     What  can 
have  become  of  Laird  Warnock,  whose  word 
is  law?     An  what  can  the  Minister  be  about, 
can  anybody  tell,  that  he  does  not  come  llyiug 
from  the  manse  to  save  the  lives  of  his  pa- 
rishioners from   cannibals,  and  gipsies,  and 
Eerish,  murdering  their  way  to  the  gallows] 

How — wh)' — or  when — that  bloody  battle 
ceased  to  be,  M'as  never  distinctly  known  eillier 
then  or  since  ;  but,  like  every  thing  else,  it  had 
an  end — and  even  now  we  have  a  confuted 
dream  of  the  spot  at  its  termination — naked 
men  lying  on  their  backs  in  the  mire,  all 
drenched  in  blood — with  women,  some  old  and 
ugly,  with  shrivelled  witch-like  hag  breasts, 
others  young,  and  darkly^  swarthily,  blackly 
beautiful,  with  budding  or  new-blown  bosoms 
unkerchiefcd  in  the  colley-shangy — perilous  to 
see — leaning  over  them:  and  these  were  the 
Egyptians!  Men  in  brown  shirts,  gore-spot- 
ted, with  green  bandages  round  their  broken 
heads,  laughing,  and  joking,  and  jeering,  and 
singing,  and  shouting,  thoutrh  desperately 
mauled  and  mangled — while  Scotiihh  wives, 
and  widows,  and  maids,  could  not  hc!p  crying 
out  in  sympathy,  "  Oh  !  but  they're  boiinie  men 
— what  a  pity  they  should  aye  be  sac  fund  o' 
fechting,  and  a'  manner  o'  mischief !" — and 
these  Mere  the  Irishmen  !  Retired  and  apart, 
hangs  the  weaver,  with  his  head  over  a  wall, 
dog-sick,  and  becking  in  strong  convulsions; 
some  haymakers  are  washing  their  cut  faces 
in  the  well:  the  butcher,  bloody  as  a  bit  of  his 
own  beef,  walks  silent  into  the  shambles;  the 
smith,  whose  grimy  face  hides  its  pummelling, 
goes  off  grinning  a  ghastly  smile  in  vfie  hands 
of  his  scolding,  yet  not  unloving  wife  ;  the 
tailor,  gay  as  a  Ilea,  and  hot  as  his  own  goose, 
to  show  how  much  more  he  has  given  than 
received,  offers  to  leap  any  man  on  the  ground. 
hop-slep-ai)d-jump,  fi.r  a  mutchkin— w-liile  Bob 
Howie  walks  about,  without  a  visible  wound,  ex- 
cept the  mark  of  bloody  knuckles  on  his  brawny 
rn-east,  with  arms  a-kimbo,  seaman  fashion— 
for  Bob  had  been  at  sea— and  as  soon  as  the 


whisky  comes,  hands  it  about  at  his  own  ex- 
pense, caulker  after  caulker,  to  the  vanquished 
— for  Bob  was  as  generous  as  brave ;  had  no 
spite  at  the  gipsies  ;  and  as  fur  Irishmen,  why 
they  were  ranting,  roving,  red-hot,  dare-devil 
boys,  just  like  himself;  and  after  the  fight, 
he  would  have  gone  with  them  lo  Purgatory, 
or  a  few  steps  further  down  the  hill.  All  the 
battle  through,  we  manse-boys  had  fought,  it 
may  be  said,  behind  the  shadow  of  him  our 
hero ;  and  in  warding  off  mischief  from  us, 
he  received  not  a  few  heavy  body-blows  from 
King  Carew,  a  descendant  of  Bamfylde  Moore, 
and  some  crown-cracks  from  the  shillelas  of 
the  Connaught  Rangers. 

Down  comes  a  sudden  thunder-plump,  mak- 
ing the  road  a  river — and  to  the  whiff  o'  light- 
ning, all  in  the  shape  of  man,  woman,  and 
child,  are  under  roof-cover.  The  afternoon 
soon  clears  up,  and  the  haymakers  leave  the 
clanking  empty  gill  or  half-mutchkin  stoup, 
for  the  field,  to  see  what  the  rain  has  done — 
the  forge  begins  again  to  roar — the  sound  of 
the  flying  shuttle  tells  us  that  the  weaver  is 
again  on  his  treddles;  the  tailor  hoists  up  his 
little  window  in  the  thatch,  in  that  close  con- 
finement, to  enjoy  the  caller  air — the  tinklers 
go  to  encamp  un  the  common — "  the  air  is 
balm" — insects,  dropping  from  eave  and  tree, 
"show  to  the  sun  their  waved  coats  dropi  with 
gold" — though  the  season  of  bird-singing  be 
over  and  gone,  there  is  a  pleasant  chirping 
hereabouts,  thereabouts,  everywhere;  the  old 
blind  beggar,  dog-led,  goes  from  door  lo  door, 
unconscious  that  such  a  stramash  has  ever 
been — and  dancing  round  our  champion,  away 
we  schoolboys  ail  lly  with  him  lo  swim  in  the 
Brother  Loch,  taking  our  fishing-rods  with  us, 
for  one  clap  of  thunder  will  not  frighten  the 
trouls  ;  and  about  the  middle  or  end  of  July, 
we  have  known  great  labbers,  twenty  inches 
long,  play  wallop  between  our  very  feel,  in 
the  warm  shallow  v/aier,  within  a  yard  of  the 
edge,  to  ihe  yellow  bodied,  linscy-tailed,  black 
half-heckle,  with  brown  mallard  wing,  a  mere 
midge,  but  once  fixed  in  lip  or  tongue,  "  inex- 
tricable as  the  gorged  lion's  bilc." 

But  ever  after  that  passage  in  the  life  of  Fro, 
his  were,  cu  the  whole,  years  of  peace.  Every 
season  seemed  lo  strengthen  his  sagacity,  and 
lo  unfold  his  wonderful  instincts.  Most  as- 
suredly he  knew  all  the  simpler  parts  of  speech 
— all  the  household  words  in  the  Scottish  lan- 
guage. He  was,  in  all  our  pastimes,  as  much 
one  of  ourselves,  as  if.  instead  of  being  a  Pagan 
with  four  feci,  he  had  been  a  Christian  with 
two.  As  for  temper,  we  trace  the  sweetness 
of  our  own  to  his;  an  angry  word  from  one  he 
loved,  he  forgot  in  half  a  minute,  offering  his 
lion-like  paw;  yet  there  were  particular  peo- 
ple ho  could  not  abide,  nor  from  their  hands 
would  he  have  accepted  a  roasted  potato  out 
of  the  drippinir  pan,  and  in  this  he  resembled 
his  master.  He  knew  the  Sabbath-day  as 
well  a-^  the  i^exlon — and  never  was  known  to 
bark  till  the  Monday  incrning  when  the  cock 
crew;  and  then  he  would  give  a  long  musical 
yowl,  as  if  his  breast  were  relieved  from  silence. 
I  If  ever,  in  this  cold,  changeful,  inconstant  world, 
;  there  was  a  friendship  that  mitjht  be  called  sin- 
1  cere,  it  was  that  which,  half  a  century  ago  and 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 


23 


upwards,  subsisted  between  Christopher  North 
and  John  Fro.  We  never  had  a  quarrel  in  all 
our  lives — and  within  these  two  months  we 
made  a  pilgrima;2:e  to  his  grave.  He  was  bu- 
ried— not  by  our  hands,  but  by  the  hands  of  one 
whose  tender  and  manly  heart  loved  the  old, 
blind,  deaf,  staggering  creature  to  the  very 
last — for  such  in  his  fourteenth  year  he  truly 
was — a  sad  and  sorry  sight  to  see,  to  them  who 
remembered  the  glory  of  his  stately  and  ma- 
jestic years.  One  day  he  crawled  with  a  moan- 
like whine  to  our  brother's  feet,  and  expired. 
Reader,  young,  bright,  and  beautiful  though 
thou  be — remember  all  flesh  is  dust! 

This  is  an  episode — a  tale  in  itself  complete, 
yet  growing  out  of,  and  appertaining  to,  the 
main  plot  of  Epic  or  Article.  You  will  recol- 
lect we  were  speaking  of  ducks,  teals,  and 
widgeons — and  we  come  now  to  the  next  clause 
of  the  verse — wild  geese  and  swans. 

Some  people's  geese  are  ail  swans;  but  so 
far  from  that  being  the  case  with  ours — sad 
and  sorry  are  we  to  say  it — now  all  our  swans 
are  geese.  But  in  our  buoyant  boyhood,  all 
God's  creatures  were  to  our  eyes  just  as  God 
made  them ;  and  there  was  ever — especially 
birds — a  tinge  of  beauty  over  them  all.  What 
an  inconceivable  dilTerence^-distance — to  the 
imagination,  between  the  nature  of  a  tame  and 
a  wild  goose  !  Aloft  in  heaven,  themselves  in 
night  invisible,  the  gabble  of  a  cloud  of  wild 
geese  is  sublime.  Whence  comes  it — whiiher 
goes  it — for  what  end,  and  by  what  power  im- 
pelled !  Reason  sees  not  into  the  darkness  of 
instinct — and  therefore  the  awe-struck  heart 
of  the  night-wandering  boy  beats  to  hear  the 
league-long  gabble  that  probably  has  winged 
its  wedge-like  way  from  the  lakes,  and  marshes, 
and  dreary  morasses  of  Siberia,  from  Lapland, 
or  Iceland,  or  the  unfrequented  and  unknown 
northern  regions  of  America — regions  set 
apart,  quoth  Bewick  we  believe,  for  summer 
residences  and  breeding  places,  and  where  they 
are  amply  provided  with  a  variety  of  food,  a 
large'  portion  of  which  must  consist  of  the 
larva!  of  gnats,  and  myriads  of  insects,  there 
fostered  by  the  unsetling  sun  !  Now  they  are 
all  gabbling  good  Gaelic  over  a  Highland  night- 
moor.  Perhaps  in  another  hour  the  descend- 
ing cloud  will  be  covering  the  wide  waters  at 
the  head  of  the  wild  Loch  Marec — or,  silent 
SPiid  a-^loep,  ihe  whole  host  be  riding  at  anchor 
around  Lomond's  Isles ! 

But  'tis  now  mid-day — and  lo !  in  that  medi- 
,terranean — a  flock  of  wild  Swans  !  Have  they 
dropt  down  from  the  ether  into  the  water  al- 
most as  pure  as  ether,  without  having  once 
folded  their  wings,  since  they  rose  aloft  to  shun 
the  insupportable  northern  snows  hundreds  of 
leagues  beyond  the  storm-swept  Orcades  ?  To 
look  at  the  quiet  creatures,  you  might  think 
that  ihev  had  never  left  the  circle  of  that  little 
loch.  There  they  hang  on  their  shadows, 
even  as  if  asleep  in  the  sunshine;  and  now 
stretching  out  their  long  wings — how  apt  for 
flight  from  clime  lo  clime  ! — ^joyously  they  beat 
the  liquid  radiance,  till  to  the  loud  flapping 
high  rises  the  mist,  and  wide  spreads  the  foam, 
almost  suflicient  for  a  rainbow.  Safe  are  they 
from  all  birds  of  prey.  The  Osprey  da-^hes 
down  on  the  teal,  or  sea-trout,  swimming  with- 


in or  below  their  shadow.  The  great  Erne,  or 
Sea-eagle,  pounces  on  the  mallard,  as  he 
mounts  from  the  bulrushes  before  the  wild 
swans  sailing,  with  all  wings  hoisted,  like  a 
fleet — but  osprey  nor  eagle  dares  to  try  his 
talons  on  that  stately  bird— for  he  is  bold  in 
his  beauty,  and  formidable  as  he  is  fair ;  the 
pinions  that  swim  and  soar  can  also  smite ; 
and  though  the  one  be  a  lover  of  Avar,  the  other 
of  peace,  yet  of  them  it  may  be  said, 
"  The  eagle  he  is  lord  above. 
The  swan  is  lord  below  1" 

To  have  shot  such  a  creature — so  large — 
so  white — so  high-soaring — and  on  the  winds 
of  midnight  wafted  from  so  far — a  creature 
that  seemed  not  merely  a  stranger  in  that  loch, 
but  belonging  to  some  mysterious  land  in 
another  hemisphere,  whose  coast  ships  with 
frozen  rigging  have  been  known  to  visit, 
driving  under  bare  poles  through  a  month's 
snow  storms — to  have  shot  such  a  creature 
was  an  era  in  our  imagination,  from  which, 
had  nature  been  more  prodigal,  we  might  have 
sprung  up  a  poet.  Once,  and  but  once,  we 
were  involved  in  the  glory  of  that  event.  The 
creature  had  been  in  a  dream  of  some  river 
or  lake  in  Kamtschatka — or  ideally  listening, 

"  Across  the  waves'  tumultuous  roar. 
The  wolTs  long  howl  from  Oonalashka's  shore," 

when,  guided  by  our  good  genius  and  our 
brightest  star,  we  suddenly  saw  him  sitting 
asleep  in  all  his  state,  within  gunshot,  in  a  bay 
of  the  moonlight  Loch  !  We  had  nearly  fainted 
— died  on  the  very  spot — and  why  were  we  not 
entitled  to  have  died  as  well  as  any  other 
passionate  spirit,  whom  joy  ever  divorced 
from  life  ]  We  blew  his  black  bill  into  pieces 
— not  a  feather  on  his  head  but  was  touched  ; 
and  like  a  little  white-sailed  pleasure-boat 
caught  in  a  whirlwind,  the  wild  swan  spun 
round,  and  then  lay  motionless  on  the  water, 
as  if  all  her  masts  had  gone  by  the  board. 
We  were  all  alone  that  night — not  even  Fro 
was  with  us;  we  had  reasons  for  being  alone, 
for  we  wished  not  that  there  should  be  any 
foot-fall  but  our  own  round  that  mountain-hut. 
Could  we  swim  1  Ay,  like  the  wild  swan  him- 
self, through  surge  or  breaker.  But  now  the 
loch  was  still  as  the  sky,  and  twenty  strokes 
carried  us  close  to  the  glorious  creature,  which, 
grasped  by  both  hands,  and  supporting  us  as 
it  was  trailed  beneath  our  breast,  while  we 
floated  rather  than  swam  ashore,  we  felt  to  be 
in  verity  our — Prey !  We  trembled  with  a 
sort  of  fear,  to  behold  him  lying  indeed  dead 
on  the  sward.  The  moon — the  many  stars, 
here  and  there  one  wondrously  large  and 
lustrous — the  hushed  glittering  loch — the  hills, 
though  somewhat  dimmed,  green  all  winter 
through,  with  here  and  there  a  patch  of  snow 
on  their  summits  in  the  blue  sky,  on  which  lay 
a  few  fleecy  clouds — the  mighty  foreign  bird, 
whose  plumage  we  had  never  hoped  to  touch 
but  in  a  dream,  lying  like  the  ghost  of  some- 
thing that  ought  not  to  have  been  destroyed — 
the  scene  was  altogether  such  as  made  our 
wild  young  heart  qiiake,  and  almost  repent  of 
having  killed  a  creature  so  surpassingly 
beautiful.  But  that  was  a  fleeting  fancy— and 
over  the  wide  moors  we  went,  like  an  American 
Indian  laden  with  game,  journeying   to   his 


S4 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


wigwam  over  the  wilderness.  As  we  whitened 
towards  the  village  in  the  light  of  morning,  the 
earlier  labourers  held  up  their  hands  in  wonder 
what  and  who  we  might  be  ;  and  Fro,  who  had 
missed  his  master,  and  was  lying  awake  for 
him  on  the  mount,  came  bounding  along,  nor 
could  refrain  the  bark  of  delighted  passion  as 
his  nose  nuzzled  in  the  soft  down  of  the  bosom 
of  the  creature  whom  he  remembered  to  have 
sometimes  seen  floating  too  far  off  in  the  lake, 
or  far  above  our  reach  cleaving  the  firmament. 


FYTTE  THIRD.  , 

0  Muckle-mou'd  Meg!  and  can  it  be  that 
thou  art  numbered  among  forgotten  things — 
unexistences ! 

"Rnll'd  round  in  earth's  diurnal  course. 
With  roclcs,  and  stones,  and  trees  ;" 

What  would  we  not  now  give  for  a  sight — 
a  kiss — of  thy  dear  lips!  Lips  which  we  re- 
member once  to  have  put  to  our  own,  even 
when  thy  beloved  barrel  was  double-loaded ! 
Now  we  sigh  to  think  on  what  then  made  us 
shudder!  Oh!  that  thy  butt  were  but  now 
resting  on  our  shoulder !  Alas !  for  ever 
discharged !  Burst  and  rent  asunder,  art  thou 
now  lying  buried  in  a  peat-moss  1  Did  some 
vulgar  villain  of  a  village  Vulcan  convert  thee, 
name  and  nature,  into  nails  1  Some  dark- 
visaged  Douglas  of  a  henroost-robbing  Egyp- 
tian, solder  thee  into  a  pan  1  Oh  !  that  our 
passion  could  dig  down  unto  thee  in  the 
bowels  of  the  earth — and  with  loud  lamenting 
elegies,  and  louder  hymns  of  gratnlation,  re- 
store thee,  buttless,  lockless,  vizyless,  burst, 
rent,  torn,  and  twisted  though  thoti  be'st,  to  the 
light  of  day,  and  of  the  world-rejoicing  Sun  ! 
Then  would  we  adorn  thee  with  evergreen 
wreaths  of  the  laurel  and  the  ivy — and  hang 
thee  up,  in  memory  and  in  monument  of  all 
the  bright,  dim,  still,  stormy  days  of  our  boy- 
hood— when  gloom  itself  was  glorv — and  wlicn 
—But 

"  Be  husli'd  ;ny  darit  spirit !  for  wisdom  rnndemns, 
When  the  faint  and  tlie  feelilo  ih'ph)re." 

Cassandra— Corinna— Sappho — Lucrctia — Cle- 
opatra— Tighe — De  Stai'l — in  iheir  beauty  or 
in  their  genius,  are,  with  millions  jin  millions 
of  the  fair-faced  or  bright-souled,  nothing  but 
dust  and  ashes;  and  as  they  are,  so  shall  Bail  lie, 
and  Grant,  and  Hemans,  and  Landon  be — and 
why  vainly  yearn  "  with  love  and  longings  in- 
finite," to  save  from  doom  of  perishable  nature 
— of  all  created  things,  but  one  alone— Muckle- 
mou'd  Meg! 

After  a  storm  comes  a  calm  ;  and  we  hasten 
to  give  the  sporting  world  the  concluding  ac- 
count  of   our   education.     In   the   moorland 
parish— God  bless  it— in  which  we   had   the  ' 
inestimable  advantage  of  passing  our  boyhood  ' 
— there  were  a  good  manv  falcons — of  course  I 
the  kite  or  glead— the  buzzard— the  sparrow-  I 
hawk— the  marsh  harrier— that  imp  the  merlin  ' 
—and,  rare   bird  and  beautiful!    there,  on    a' 
cliff  which,  alas!  a  crutched  man  must  climb  ' 
no   more,  did   the  Peregrine   build   her   nest.  ' 
You  must  not  wonder  at  this,  for  the  parish 

was  an  extensive  one  even  for  Scotland half 

Highland,  half  Lowland— and  had   not   only  - 
"  muirs  and  mosses  many  o,"  but  numerous  ; 


hills,  not  a  few  mountains,  some  most  extra- 
ordinary cliffs,  considerable  store  of  woods, 
and  one,  indeed,  that  might  well  be  called  The 
Forest. 

Lift  up  thy  rock-crowned  forehead  through 
thy  own  sweet  stormy  skies,  Auld  Scotland  ! 
and  as  sternly  and  grimly  thou  look'st  far  over 
the  hushed  or  howling  seas,  remember  thee — 
till  all  thy  moors  and  mosses  quake  al  thy 
heart,  as  if  swallowing  up  an  invading  army 
— a  fate  that  oft  befell  thy  foes  ul'  yore — re- 
member thee,  in  mist-shrouded  dream,  and 
cloud-born  vision,  of  the  long  line  of  kings, 
and  heroes,  and  sages,  and  bards,  whose  hal 
lowed  bones  sleep  in  pine-darkened  tombs 
among  the  mountain  heather,  by  the  side  of 
rivers,  and  lochs,  and  arms  of  ocean — their 
spirits  yet  seen  in  lofty  superstition,  sailing 
or  silting  on  the  swift  or  settled  tempesU  Lift 
up  th\  rock-crowned  forehead,  Auld  Scotland  I 
and  sing  aloud  to  nil  the  nations  of  the  earth, 
with  thy  voice  of  cliffs,  and  caves,  and  caverns, 

"  Wha  daiir  meddle  wi'  me  V 

What!  some  small,  puny,  piteous  vindpipes 
are  heard  cheeping  against  thee  from  the  Cock- 
neys— like  ragged  chickens  agape  in  the  pip. 
How  the  feeble  and  fearful  creatures  would 
crawl  on  their  hands  and  knees,  faint  and 
giddy,  and  shrieking  out  for  help  to  the  heather 
stalks,  if  forced  to  face  one  of  thy  clirfs,  and 
ioot  its  llinly  bosom !  How  wuuld  the  depths 
of  their  long  cars,  colton-stuired  in  vain,  ache 
to  the  spray-thunder  of  thy  cataracts  !  Sick, 
sick  would  be  their  stomachs,  storm-swepl  in 
a  six-oared  cutler  into  the  jaws  of  Siatfa  !  That 
sight  is  suihcient  to  set  the  most  saturnine  on  the 
guffaw — the  Barry  Cornwall  himself,  crossiag 
a  chasm  a  hundred  yards  deep, 

"  On  the  uncertain  fooling  of  a  ipar," 
on  a  tree  felled  where  it  stood,  centnries  ago, 
by  steel  or  storm,  into  a  ledgelcss  bridge,  oft 
sounding  and  shaking  to  the  hunter's  feet  in 
chase  of  the  red-deer !  The  Cockneys,do  not 
like  us  Scotchmen — because  of  our  high  cheek- 
bones. They  are  sometimes  very  high  indeed, 
very  coarse,  and  verj'  ugly,  and  give  a  Scotch- 
man a  grim  and  gaunt  look,  assuredly  not  to 
be  sneezed  at,  with  any  hope  of  impunity,  on 
a  dark  day  and  in  a  lonesome  place,  by  the 
most  heroic  chief  of  the  most  herf>ic  clan  in 
all  the  level  land  of  Lud,  travelling  all  by  him- 
self in  ahorse  and  gig,  and  with  a  black  boy  in  a 
cockaded  glazed  hat,  through  the  Heelands  o* 
Scotland. passingi>f  course,  at  the  vent*  least,for 
a  captain  of  Hussars  !  Then  Scotchmen  caniiii 
keep  their  backs  siraught,  it  seems,  and  are  al- 
ways booin'  antl  booin'  afore  a  great  man. 
Cannot  they,  indeed  ?  Do  they,  indeed  1  As- 
cend with  that  Scottish  shepherd  yon  moun- 
tain's breast — swim  with  him  that  mountain 
loch — a  bottle  of  Glenlivet,  who  first  stands  in 
shallow  water,  on  the  Oak  Isle — and  whose 
back  will  be  straughtest,  that  of  the  Caledo- 
nian or  the  Cockney?  The  little  Luddite  will 
be  puking  amonc:  the  heather,  about  some  five 
hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea — higher 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life  than  Si.  Paul's,  and 
nearer  than  he  will  a^ain  be.  either  in  the  spirit 
or  the  llesh,  to  heaven.  The  little  Luddite 
will  be  puking  in  the  hitherto  unpolluted  loch. 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 


25 


after  some  seven  strokes  or  so,  with  a  strong 
Scottish  weed  twisted  like  an  eel  round  its 
thigh,  and  shrieking  out  for  the  nearest  resus- 
citating machine  in  a  country,  where,  alas ! 
there  is  no  Humane  Society.  The  back  of  the 
shepherd — even  in  presence  of  that  "  great 
man" — will  be  as  straught  as — do  not  tremble. 
Cockney — this  Crutch.  Conspicuous  from  afar 
like  a  cairn,  from  the  inn-door  at  Arrochar,  in 
an  hour  he  will  be  turning  up  his  little  finger 
so — on  the  Cobbler's  head ;  or,  in  twenty  mi- 
nutes, gliding  like  a  swan,  or  shooting  like  a 
salmon,  his  back  being  still  straught — leaving 
Luss,  he  will  be  shaking  the  dewdrops  from  his 
brawny  body  on  the  silver  sand  of  Inch  Morren. 
And  happy  were  we,  Christopher  North, 
happy  were  we  in  the  parish  in  which  Fate  de- 
livered us  up  to  Nature,  that,  under  her  tuition, 
our  destinies  might  be  fulfilled.  A  parish ! 
Why  it  was  in  itself  a  kingdom — a  world. 
Thirty  miles  long  by  twenty  at  the  broadest, 
and  five  at  the  narrowest;  and  is  not  that  a 
kingdom — is  not  that  a  world  worthy  of  any 
monarch  that  ever  wore  a  crown?  Was  it 
level  1  Yes,  league-long  levels  were  in  it  of 
greensward,  hard  as  the  sand  of  the  sea-shore, 
yet  springy  and  elastic,  fit  training  ground  for 
Childers,  or  Eclipse,  or  Ilambletonian,  or  Smo- 
lensko,  or  fur  a  charge  of  cavalry  in  some  great 
pitched  battle,  while  artillery  might  keep  play- 
ing against  artillery  from  innumerous  aflVont- 
ing  hills.  Was  it  boggy?  Yes,  black  bogs 
were  there,  which  extorted  a  panegyric  from 
the  roving  Irishman  in  his  richest  brogiie — 
bogs  in  which  forests  had  of  old  been  buried, 
and  armies  with  all  their  banners.  Was  it 
hilly  1  Ay,  there  the  white  sheep  nibbled,  and 
the  back  cattle  grazed ;  there  they  baa'd  and 
they  lowed  upon  a  thousand  hills — a  crowd  of 
cones,  all  green  as  emerald.  Was  it  moun- 
tainous 1  Give  answer  from  afar,  ye  mist- 
shrouded  summits,  and  ye  clouds  cloven  by 
the  eagle's  wing !  But  whether  ye  be  indeed 
mountains,  or  whether  ye  be  clouds,  who  can 
tell,  bedazzled  as  are  his  eyes  by  that  long- 
lingering  sunset,  that  drenches  heaven  and 
earth  in  one  indistinguishable  glory,  setting 
the  West  on  fire,  as  if  the  final  conflagration 
were  begun  !  Was  it  woody  1  Hush,  hush, 
and  you  will  hear  a  pine-cone  drop  in  the 
central  silence  of  a  forest — a  silent  and  soli- 
tary wilderness — in  which  you  may  wander  a 
whole  day  long,  unaccompanied  but  by  the 
cushat,  the  corby,  the  falcon,  the  roe,  and  they 
are  all  shy  of  human  feet,  and,  like  thoughts, 
j)ass  away  in  a  moment ;  so  if  you  long  for 
less  fleeting  farewells  from  the  native  dwellers 
in  the  wood,  lo !  the  bright  brown  queen  of  the 
butterflies,  gay  and  gautly  in  her  glancings 
through  the  solitude,  the  dragon-fly  whirring 
bird-like  over  the  pools  in  the  glade  ;  and  if 
your  ear  desire  music,  the  robin  and  the  wren 
may  haply  trill  you  a  few  notes  among  the 
briery  rocks,  or  the  bold  blarkbird  open  wide 
his  yellow  bill  in  his  hoUy-vree,  and  set  the 
squirrels  a-leaping  all  within  reach  of  his 
ringing  roundelay.  Any  rivers?  one — to  whom 
a  thousand  torrents  are  tributarj^ — as  he  him- 
self is  tributary  to  the  sea.  Any  lochs?  How 
many  we  know  not — for  we  never  counted 
them    twice    alike — omitting    perhaps    some 


forgotten  tarns,  or  counting  twice  over  some 
one  of  our  more  darling  waters,  worthy  to  dash 
their  waves  against  the  sides  of  ships — alone 
wanting  to  the  magnificence  of  those  inland 
seas !  Yes — it  was  as  level,  as  boggy,  as 
hilly,  as  mountainous,  as  woody,  as  lochy, 
and  as  rivery  a  parish,  as  ever  laughed  to 
scorn  Colonel  Mudge  and  his  Trigonometrical 
Survey. 

Was  not  that  a  noble  parish  for  apprentice- 
ship in  sports  and  pastimes  of  a  great  master? 
No  need  of  any  teacher.  On  the  wings  of  joy 
we  were  borne  over  the  bosom  of  nature,  and 
learnt  all  things  worthy  and  needful  to  be 
learned,  by  instinct  first,  and  afterwards  by 
reason.  To  look  at  a  wild  creature — winged 
with  feathers,  or  mere  feet — and  not  desire  to 
destroy  or  capture  it — is  impossible  to  passion 
— to  imagination — to  fancy.  Thus  had  we 
longed  to  feel  and  handle  the  glossy  plumage 
of  the  beaked  bird — the  wide-winged  Birds  of 
Prey — before  our  finger  had  ever  touched  a 
trigger.  Their  various  flight,  in  various  wea- 
ther, we  had  watched  and  noted  with  some- 
thing even  of  the  eye  of  a  naturalist — the 
wonder  of  a  poet ;  for  among  the  brood  of 
boys  there  are  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
poets  who  never  see  manhood, — the  poetry 
dying  away — the  boy  growing  up  into  mere 
prose ; — yet  to  some  even  of  the  paragraphs 
of  these  Three  Fyttes  do  we  appeal,  that  a  few 
sparks  of  the  sacred  light  are  yet  alive  within 
us  ;  and  sad  to  our  old  ears  would  be  the  sound 
of  "  Put  out  the  light,  and  then — put  out  the 
light!"  Thus  were  we  impelled,  even  when  a 
mere  child,  far  away  from  the  manse,  for  miles, 
into  the  moors  and  woods.  Once  it  was  feared 
that  poor  wee  Kit  was  lost;  for  haA'ing  set  off 
all  by  himself,  at  sunrise,  to  draw  a  night-line 
from  the  distant  Black  Loch,  and  look  at  a  trap 
set  for  a  glead,  a  mist  overtook  him  on  the 
moor  on  his  homeward  way,  with  an  eel  as 
long  as  himself  hanging  over  his  shoulder,  and 
held  him  prisoner  for  many  hours  within  its 
shifting  walls,  frail  indeed,  and  opposing  no 
resistance  to  the  hand,  yet  impenetrable  to  the 
feet  of  fear  as  the  stone  dungeon's  thraldom. 
If  the  mist  had  remained,  that  would  have 
been  nothing;  only  a  still  cold  wet  seat  on  a 
stone  ;  but  as  "  a  trot  becomes  a  gallop  soon, 
in  spite  of  curb  and  rein,"  so  a  Scotch  mist 
becomes  a  shower — and  a  shower  a  flood — 
and  a  flood  a  storm — and  a  storm  a  tempest — 
and  a  tempest  thunder  and  lightning — and 
thunder  and  lightning  heaven-quake  and 
earth-quake — till  the  heart  of  poor  wee  Kit 
quaked,  and  almost  died  within  him  in  the 
desert.  In  this  age  of  Confessions,  need  we 
be  ashamed  to  own,  in  the  face  of  the  whole 
world,  that  we  sat  us  down  and  cried !  The 
small  brown  Moorland  bird,  as  dry  as  a  toast, 
hopped  out  of  his  heather-hole,  and  cheerfully 
cheeped  comfort.  With  crest  just  a  thought 
lowered  by  the  rain,  the  green-backed,  white- 
breasted  peaseweep,  walked  close  by  us  in  the 
mist;  and  sight  of  wonder,  that  made  even  in 
that  quandary  by  the  quagmire  our  heart  beat 
with  joy — lo !  never  seen  before,  and  seldom 
since,  three  wee  peaseweeps,  not  three  days 
old,  little  bigger  than  shrew-mice,  all  covered 
with  blackish  down,  interspersed  with  long 
C 


S6 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


white  hair,  running  after  their  mother!  But 
the  large  hazel  eye  of  the  she  peaseweep,  rest- 
less even  in  the  most  utter  solitude,  soon 
spied  us  glowering  at  her,  and  her  young  ones, 
through  our  tears;  and  not  for  a  moment 
doubting — Heaven  forgive  her  for  the  shrewd 
but  cruel  suspicion ! — that  we  were  Lord  Eg- 
linton's  gamekeeper — with  a  sudden  shrill  cry 
that  thrilled  to  the  marrow  in  our  cold  back- 
bone— flapped  and  fluttered  herself  away  into 
the  mist,  while  the  little  black  bits  of  down 
disappeared,  like  devils,  into  the  moss.  The 
croaking  of  the  frogs  grew  terrible.  And 
worse  and  worse,  close  at  hand,  seeking 
his  lost  cows  through  the  mist,  the  bellow 
of  the  notorious  red  bull !  We  began  saying 
our  prayers;  and  just  then  the  sun  forced 
himself  out  into  the  open  day,  and,  like 
the  sudden  opening  of  the  shutters  of  a  room, 
the  whole  world  was  filled  with  light.  The 
frogs  seemed  to  sink  among  the  pow-hcads — 
as  for  the  red  bull  Avho  had  tossed  the  tinker, 
he  was  cantering  away,  with  his  tail  towards 
us,  to  a  lot  of  cows  on  the  hill  ;  and  hark — a 
long,  a  loud,  an  oft-repeated  halloo !  Rab  Ro- 
ger, honest  fellow,  and  Leezy  Muir,  honest 
lass,  from  the  manse,  in  search  of  our  dead 
body!  Rab  pulls  our  ears  lightly,  and  Lcczy 
kisses  us  from  the  one  to  the  other — wrings 
the  rain  out  of  our  long  yellow  hair — (a  pretty 
contrast  to  the  small  gray  sprig  now  on  the 
crown  of  our  pericranium,  and  the  thin  tail 
a-cock  behind) — and  by  and  by  stepping  into 
Hazel-Deanhcad  for  a  drap  and  a  "chiitrrin' 
piece,"  by  the  time  we  reach  the  manse  we  arc 
as  dry  as  a  whistle — take  our  scold  and  our 
pawmies  from  the  minister — and,  by  way  of 
punishment  and  penance,  after  a  little  hot 
whisky  toddy,  with  brown  sugar  and  a  bit  of 
bun,  are  bundled  off"  to  bed  in  the  dayliine! 

Thus  we  grew  up  a  Fowler,  ere  a  loaded 
gun  was  in  our  hand — and  often  guided  the 
city-fowler  to  the  haunts  of  the  curlew,  the 
plover,  the  moorfowl,  and  the  falcon.  The 
falcon  !  yes — in  the  higher  region  of  clouds 
and  cliffs.  For  now  we  had  shot  up  into  a 
stripling — and  how  fast  had  we  so  shot  up 
you  may  know,  by  taking  notice  of  the  school- 
boy on  the  play-green,  and  two  years  after- 
wards discovering,  perhaps,  that  he  is  that 
fine  tall  ensign  carrying  the  colours  among 
the  light-bobs  of  the  regiment,  to  the  sound  of 
clarion  and  flute,  cymbal  and  great  drum, 
marching  into  the  city  a  thousand  strong. 

We  used  in  early  boyhood,  deceived  by 
some  uncertainty  in  size,  not  to  distinguish 
between  a  kite  and  a  buzzard,  which  was  very 
stupid,  and  unlike  us— more  like  Poietes  in 
Salmonia.  The  flight  of  the  buzzard,  as  may 
be  seen  in  Selby,  is  slow— and  except  durin? 
the  season  of  incubation,  when  it  often  soars 
to  a  considerable  height,  it  seldom  remains 
long  on  the  wing.  It  is  indeed  a  heaw,  inac- 
tive bird,  both  in  disposition  and  appearance, 
and  is  generally  seen  perched  upon  some  old 
and  decayed  tree,  such  beina;  its  favourite 
haunt.  Him  we  soon  thought  little  or  nothing 
about— and  the  last  one  we  shot,  it  was.  we 
remember,  just  as  he  was  coming  out  of  the 
deserted  nest  of  a  crow,  which  he  had  taken 
possession  of  out  of  pure  laziness ;  and  we 


killed  him  for  not  building  a  house  of  his  own 
in  a  country  where  there  was  no  want  of 
sticks.  But  the  kite  or  glead,  as  the  same  dis- 
tinguished ornithologist  rightly  says,  is  pro- 
verbial  for  the  ease  and  gracefulness  of  its 
flight,  which  generally  consists  of  large  and 
sweeping  circles,  performed  with  a  motionless 
wing,  or  at  least  with  a  slight  and  almost  im- 
perceptible stroke  of  its  pinions,  and  at  very 
distant  intervals.  In  this  manner,  and  direct- 
ing its  course  by  its  tail,  which  acts  as  a  rud- 
der, whose  slightest  motion  produces  eflect,  it 
frequently  soars  to  such  a  height  as  to  become 
almost  invisible  to  the  human  eye.  Hira  we 
loved  to  slay,  as  a  bird  worthy  of  our  barrel. 
Him  and  her  have  we  watched  for  days,  like 
a  lynx,  till  we  were  led,  almost  as  if  by  an 
instinct,  to  their  nest  in  the  heart  of  the  forest 
— a  nest  lined  with  wool,  hair,  and  other  soft 
materials,  in  the  fork  of  some  large  tree. 
They  will  not,  of  course,  utterly  forsake  their 
nest,  when  they  have  young,  fire  at  them  as 
you  will,  thouirh  they  become  more  wary,  and 
seem  &•<  if  they  heard  a  leaf  fall,  so  suddenly 
will  ihey  start  and  soar  to  heaven.  We  re- 
member, from  an  ambuscade  in  a  briery  dell 
in  the  forest,  shooting  one  flyinir  overhead  to 
its  nest ;  and,  on  gi>ing  up  to  him  as  he  lay  on 
his  back,  with  clenched  talons  and  fierce  eyes, 
absolutely  shrickin?  and  yelling  with  fear,  and 
ra^e,  and  pain,  we  intended  to  spare  his  life, 
and  only  take  him  prisoner,  when  wc  beheld 
beside  him  on  the  sod,  a  chicken  from  the 
brood  of  famous  dinger  piles,  then,  all  but  his 
small  self,  following  the  feet  of  their  clucking 
uKither  at  the  manse !  With  visage  all  in- 
flamed, we  gave  him  the  bull  on  his  double 
organ  of  dcstructiveness,  then  only  known  to 
us  by  the  popular  name  of  "  back  o'  the  head," 
exclaiming 

"  T'nllnn  tp  hoc  vulncrp.  Paling 
liiitiiiilal" 

Quivered  every  feather,  from  beak  to  tail  and 
talon,  in  his  last  convulsion, 
"  Vitaquc  cum  gcinilu  fugit  indignota  siib  umbras  '." 

In  the  season  of  love  what  combats  have 
we  been  witness  to — Umpire — between  birds 
of  prey !  The  Female  Falcon,  she  sat  aloof 
like  a  sultana,  in  her  soft,  sleek,  glossy  plumes, 
the  iris  in  her  eye  of  wilder,  more  piercing, 
fier}',  cruel,  fascinating,  and  maddening  lustre, 
than  ever  lit  the  face  of  the  haughtiest  human 
queen,  adored  by  princes  on  her  throne  of  dia- 
monds. And  now  her  whole  plumage  shivers 
— and  is  ruflled — for  her  own  Gentle  Peregrine 
appears,  and  they  two  will  enjoy  their  dalli- 
ance on  the  edge  of  the  cli(T-ch.asm — and  the 
Bride  shall  become  a  wife  in  that  stormy  sun- 
shine on  the  loftiest  precipice  of  all  these  our 
Alps.  But  a  sudden  sujjh  sweeps  down  from 
heaven,  and  a  rival  Hawk  comes  rushing  in 
his  ra?e  from  his  widowed  cyry,  and  will  win 
and  wear  this  his  second  selected  bride — for 
her  sake,  tearing,  or  to  be  torn,  to  pieces. 
Both  struck  down  from  heaven,  fall  a  hundred 
fathom  to  the  heather,  talon-locked,  in  the  mu- 
tual gripe  of  death.  Fair  play,  gentlemen,  and 
attend  to  the  Umpire.  It  is,  we  unde  stand,  to 
be  an  up-and-down  fight.  Allow  us  to  disen 
tangle  you — and  without  giving  advantage  to 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 


27 


either — elbow-room  to  both.  Neither  of  you 
ever  saw  a  human  face  so  near  before — nor 
ever  were  captive  in  a  human  hand.  Both 
fasten  their  momentarily  frightened  eyes  on 
us,  and,  holding  back  their  heads,  emit  a  wild 
ringing  cry.  But  now  they  catch  sight  of  each 
other,  and  in  an  instant  are  one  bunch  of 
torn,  bloody  plumes.  Perhaps  their  wings  are 
broken,  and  they  can  soar  no  more — so  up  we 
fling  them  both  into  the  air — and  wheeling 
each  within  a  short  circle,  clash  again  go  both 
birds  together,  and  the  talons  keep  tearing 
throats  till  they  die.  Let  them  die,  then,  for 
both  are  for  ever  disabled  to  enjoy  their  lady- 
love. She,  like  some  peerless  llower  in  the 
days  of  chivalry  at  a  fatal  tournament,  seeing 
her  rival  lovers  dying  for  her  sake,  nor  ever 
to  wear  her  glove  or  scarf  in  the  front  of  bat- 
tle, rising  to  leave  her  canopy  in  tears  of  grief 
and  pride — even  like  such  Angelica,  the  Fal- 
con unfolds  her  wings,  and  flies  slowly  away 
from  her  dying  ravishers,  to  bewail  her  vir- 
ginity on  the  mountains.  "  0  Frailty !  thy 
name  is  woman !"  A  third  Lover  is  already 
on  the  wing,  more  fortunate  than  his  preced- 
ing peers — and  Angelica  is  won,  woo'd,  and 
sitting,  about  to  lay  an  egg  in  an  old  eyry, 
soon  repaired  and  furbished  up  for  the  honej'- 
weck,  with  a  number  of  small  birds  lying  on 
the  edge  of  the  hymeneal  couch,  with  which, 
when  wearied  with  love,  and  yawp  with  hun- 
ger, Angelica  may  cram  her  maw  till  she  be 
ready  to  burst,  by  her  bridegroom's  breast. 

Forgotten  all  human  dwellings,  and  all  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  that  abide  by  firesides, 
and  doorways,  and  rooms,  and  roofs — delight- 
ful was  it,  during  the  long,  long  midsummer 
holyday,  to  lie  all  alone,  on  the  green-sward 
of  some  moor-surrounded  mount,  not  far  from 
the  foot  of  some  range  of  clitlV,  and  with  our 
face  up  to  the  sky,  wait,  unwearj-ing,  till  a 
speck  was  seen  to  cross  the  blue  cloudless 
lift,  and  steadying  itself  after  a  minute's  qui- 
vering into  motionless  rest,  as  if  hung  sus- 
pended there  by  the  counteracting  attraction 
of  heaven  and  earth,  known  to  be  a  Falcon  ! 
Balanced  far  above  its  prey,  and,  soon  as  the 
right  moment  came,  ready  to  pounce  down, 
and  lly  away  with  the  treasure  in  its  talons  to 
its  crying  eyry !  If  no  such  speck  were  for 
hours  visible  in  the  ether,  doubtless  dream 
upon  dream,  rising  unbidden,  and  all  of  their 
own  wild  accord,  congenial  with  the  wilder- 
ness, did,  like  phantasmagoria,  pass  to  and 
fro,  backwards  and  forwards,  along  the  dark- 
ened curtain  of  our  imagination,  all  the  lights 
of  reason  being  extinguished  or  removed  !  In 
that  trance,  not  unheard,  although  scarcely 
noticed,  was  the  cry  of  the  curlew,  the  murmur 
of  the  little  moorland  burn,  or  the  din,  almost 
like  dashing,  of  the  far-off  loch.  'Twas  thus 
that  the  senses,  in  their  most  languid  slate, 
ministered  to  the  fancy,  and  fed  her  for  a  fu- 
ture day,  when  all  the  imagery  then  received 
so  impertectly,  and  in  broken  fragments,  into 
her  mysterious  keeping,  was  to  arise  in  order- 
ly array,  and  to  form  a  world  more  lovely  and 
more  romantic  even  than  the  reality,  which 
then  lay  hushed  or  whispering,  glittering  or 
gloomy,  in  the  outward  air.  For  the  senses 
hear  and  see  all  things  in  their  seeming  slum- 


bers, from  all  the  impulses  that  come  to  them 
in  solitude  gaining  more,  far  more  than  they 
have  lost !  When  we  are  awake,  or  half 
awake,  or  almost  sunk  into  a  sleep,  they  are 
ceaselessly  gathering  materials  for  the  think- 
ing and  feeling  soul — and  it  is  hers,  in  a  deep 
delight  formed  of  memory  and  imagination,  to 
put  them  together  by  a  divine  plastic  power, 
in  which  she  is  almost,  as  it  were,  a  very  cre- 
ator, till  she  exult  to  look  on  beauty  and  on 
grandeur  such  as  this  earth  and  these  heavens 
never  saw,  products  of  her  own  immortal  and 
immaterial  energies,  and  deixg  once,  to  be  for 
ever,  when  the  universe,  with  all  its  suns  and 
systems,  is  no  more  ! 

But  ofiener  we  and  our  shadows  glided  along 
the  gloom  at  the  foot  of  the  cliffs,  ear-led  by  the 
incessant  cry  of  the  young  hawks  in  their  nest, 
ever  hungry  except  when  asleep.  Left  to 
themselves,  when  the  old  birds  are  hunting, 
an  hour's  want  of  food  is  felt  to  be  famine,  and 
you  hear  the  cry  of  the  callow  creatures,  angry 
with  one  another,  and  it  may  be,  fighting  with 
soft  beak  and  pointless  claws,  till  a  living 
lump  of  down  tumbles  over  the  rock-ledge, 
soon  to  be  picked  to  the  bone  by  insects,  who 
likewise  all  live  upon  prey  ;  for  example.  Ants 
of  carrion.  Get  you  behind  that  briery  bield, 
that  wild-rose  hanging  rock,  far  and  wide 
scenting  the  wilderness  with  a  faint  perfume; 
or  into  that  cell,  almost  a  parlour,  with  a  Gothic 
roof  formed  by  large  stones  leaning  one  against 
the  other  and  so  arrested,  as  they  tumbled  from 
the  frost-riven  breast  of  the  precipice.  Wait 
there,  though  it  should  be  for  hours — but  it 
will  not  be  for  hours ;  for  both  the  old  hawks 
are  circling  the  sky,  one  over  the  marsh  and 
one  over  the  wood.  She  comes — she  comes — 
the  female  Sparrowhawk,  twice  the  size  of  her 
mate; "and  while  he  is  plain  in  his  dress,  as  a 
cunning  and  cruel  Quaker,  she  is  gay  and 
gaudy  as  a  Demirep  dressed  for  the  pit  of  the 
Opera — deep  and  broad  her  bosom,  with  aa 
air  of  luxury  in  her  eyes  that  glitter  like  a 
serpent's.  But  now  she  is  a  mother,  and  plays 
a  mother's  pari — greedier,  even  than  for  her- 
self, for  her  greedy  young.  The  lightning 
flashes  from  the  caVe-mouth,  and  she  comes 
tumbling,  and  dashing,  and  rattling  through 
the  dwarf  bushes  on  the  cliff-face,  perpendicu- 
lar and  plumb-down,  within  three  yards  of  her 
murderer.  Her  husband  will  not  visit  his  nest 
thisday— no— nor  all  night  long;  for  a  father's 
is  not  "as  a  mother's  love.  Your  only  chance 
of  killing  him,  too,  is  to  take  a  13'nx-eyed  cir- 
cuit round  about  all  the  moors  within  half  a 
league;  and  possibly  you  may  see  him  sitting 
on  some  cairn,  or  stone,  or  tree-slump,  afraid 
to  fly  either  hither  or  thither,  perplexed  by  the 
sudden  death  he  saw  appearing  amoug  the  un- 
accountable smoke,  scenting  it  yet  with  his 
fine  nostrils,  so  as  to  be  unwary  of  3'our  ap- 
proach. Hazard  a  long  shot— for  you  are  right 
behind  him — and  a  slug  may  hit  him  on  the. 
head,  and,  following  the  feathers,  split  his 
skull-cap  and  scatter  his  brains.  'Tis  done — 
and  the  eyry  is  orphan'd.  Let  the  small  brown 
moorland  birds  twitter  lo  Pean,  as  they  hang 
balanced  on  the  bulrushes— let  the  stone-chat 
glance  less  fearfully  within  shelter  of  the  old 
gray  cairn — let  the  "cushat  coo  his  joyous  grati 


28 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


tude  in  the  wood — and  the  lark  soar  up  to  hea- 
ven, afraid  no  more  of  a  demon  descending 
from  the  cloud.  As  for  the  imps  in  the  e3-ry, 
let  them  die  of  rage  and  hunger — for  there 
must  always  be  pain  in  the  world ;  and  'tis 
well  when  its  endurance  by  the  savage  is  the 
cause  of  pleasure  to  the  sweet — when  the  gore- 
yearning  cry  of  the  cruel  is  drowned  in  the 
song  of  the  kind  at  feed  or  play — and  the 
tribes  of  the  peace-loving  rejoice  in  the  des- 
pair and  death  of  the  robbers  and  shedders  of 
blood! 

Not  one  fowler  of  fifty  thousand  has  in  all 
his  days  shot  an  Eagle.  That  royal  race  seems 
nearly  extinct  in  Scotland.  Gaze  as  you  will 
over  the  wide  circumference  of  a  Highland 
heaven,  calm  as  the  bride's  dream  of  love,  or 
disturbed  as  the  shipwrecked  sailor's  vision  of 
a  storm,  and  all  spring  and  summer  long  )'ou 
may  not  chance  to  see  the  shadow  of  an  Eagle 
in  the  sun.  The  old  kings  of  the  air  are  some- 
times yet  seen  by  the  shepherds  on  clilfor  be- 
neath cloud;  but  their  offspring  are  rarely 
allowed  to  get  full  fledged  in  spite  of  the  rifle 
always  lying  loaded  in  the  shieling.  But  in 
the  days  of  our  boyhood  there  were  many  glori- 
ous things  on  earth  and  air  that  now  no  more 
seem  to  exist,  and  among  these  were  the 
Eagles.  One  pair  had  from  time  immemorial 
built  on  the  Echo-cliff,  and  you  could  see  with 
a  telescope  the  eyry,  with  the  rim  of  its  cir- 
cumference, six  feet  in  diameter,  strewn  with 
partridges,  moorfowl,  and  leverets — their 
feathers  and  their  skeletons.  But  the  Echo- 
clifl'  was  inaccessible. 

"  Hither  the  rainlmw  comes,  the  rloud, 
Ami  mists  that  spread  the  flyiiis  shroud, 
And  siinbeains,  and  the  flyinK  l)lapt. 
That  if  it  could,  would  liiirry  past, 
lUil  that  enormous  barrier  binds  it  fast."  . 

No  human  eye  ever  saw  the  birds  within  a 
thousand  feet  of  the  lower  earth ;  yet  how 
often  must  they  have  stooped  down  on  lamb 
and  leveret,  and  struck  the  cushat  in  her  verv 
yew-tree  in  the  centre  of  the  wood !  Perhaps 
they  preyed  at  midnight,  by  the  light  of  the 
waning  moon — at  mid-day,  in  the  night  of 
sun-hiding  tempests — or  afar  off,  in  even  more 
solitary  wilds,  carried  thither  on  the  whirlwind 
of  their  own  wings,  they  swept  off  their  prey 
from  uninhabited  isles, 

"Placed  far  amid  the  melancholy  main," 
or  vast  inland  glens,  where   not   a  summer 
shieling  smiles  beneath  the  region  of  eternal 
snows.     But  eagles  are  subject  to  diseases  in 
flesh,  and  bone,  and  blood,  just  like  the  veriest 
poultry  that  die  of  croup  and  consumption  on 
the  dunghill  before  the  byre-door.     Sickness 
blinds  the  eye  that  God  framed  to  pierce  the 
eas,  and  weakens  the  wing  that  dallies  with 
the  tempest.    Then  the  eagle  feels  how  vain 
IS  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings. 
He  IS  hawked  at  by  the  mousing  owl,  whose 
mstmct  instructs  him  that  these  talons  have  I 
lost  their  grasp,  and  these  pinions  their  death- 
blow.    The  eagle  lies  f,.r  weeks  famished  in 
his  eyry,  and    hunger-driven   over  the  Icd^c,  I 
•eaves  it  to  ascend  no  more.     He  is  dethroned,  ' 
and  wasted  to  mere  bones— a  bunch  of  feathers  ' 
— his  flight  is  now  slower   than   that  of  the 
uuxzard— he  floats  himself  along   now   with  i 


difficulty  from  knoll  to  knoll,  pursued  by  the 
shrieking  magpies,  buffeted  by  the  corby,  and 
lying  on  his  back,  like  a  recreant,  before  the 
beak  of  the  raven,  who,  a  month  ago,  was  ter- 
rified to  hop  round  the  carcass  till  the  king  of 
the  air  was  satiated,  and  gave  his  permission 
to  croaking  Sooty  to  dig  into  the  bowels  he 
himself  had  scorned.  Yet  he  is  a  noble  aim 
to  the  fowler  still ;  you  break  a  wing  and  a 
le?,  but  fear  to  touch  him  with  your  hand; 
Fro  feels  the  iron-clutch  of  his  talons  con- 
stricted in  the  death-pang;  and  holding  him 
up.  you  wonder  that  such  an  anatomy — for  his 
weight  is  not  more  than  three  pounds — could 
drive  his  claws  through  that  shaggy  hide  till 
blood  sprung  to  the  blow — inextricable  but  to 
yells  of  pain,  and  leaving  gashes  hard  to  heal, 
for  virulent  is  the  poison  of  rage  in  a  dying 
bird  of  prey. 

Sublime  solitude  of  our  boyhood!  where 
each  stone  in  the  desert  was  sublime,  unasso- 
ciated  though  it  was  with  dreams  of  memorj', 
in  its  own  simple  native  power  over  the  human 
heart!  Each  sudden  breath  of  wind  passed 
by  us  like  the  voice  of  a  spirit.  There  were 
strange  meanings  in  the  clouds^-oficn  so  like 
human  forms  and  faces  threatening  us  off,  or 
beckoning  us  on,  with  long  black  arms,  back 
into  the  iong-withdrawing  wilderness  of  hea- 
ven. We  wished  then,  with  quaking  bosoms, 
that  we  had  not  been  all  alone  in  the  desert — 
that  there  had  been  another  heart,  whose  beat- 
ings might  have  kept  time  with  our  own,  that 
we  might  have  gathered  courage  in  the  silent 
and  sullen  gloom  from  the  light  in  a  brother's 
eye — the  smile  on  a  brother's  countenance. 
.\nd  often  had  we  such  a  friend  in  these  our 
far-off  wanderings  over  moors  and  mountains, 
by  the  edge  of  lochs,  and  through  the  umbrage 
of  the  old  pinewoods.  .\  friend  from  whom 
"  we  had  received  his  heart,  and  given  him 
back  ourown," — such  a  friendship  as  the  most 
fortunate  and  the  most  happy — and  at  that 
time  we  were  both — are  sometimes  permitted 
by  Providence,  with  all  the  passionate  devo- 
tion of  young  and  untamed  imagination,  to 
enjoy,  during  a  bright  dreamy  world  of  which 
that  friendship  is  as  the  Polar  star.  Emilius 
Godfrey!  for  ever  holy  be  the  name!  a  boy 
when  we  were  but  a  child — when  we  were  hut 
a  youth,  a  man.  We  felt  stronger  in  the  sha- 
dow of  his  arm — happier,  bolder,  better  in  the 
light  of  his  countenance.  He  was  the  pro- 
tector— the  guardian  of  our  moral  being.  In 
our  pastimes  we  bounded  with  wilder  glee — at 
our  studies  we  sat  with  intenser  earnestness, 
by  his  side.  He  it  was  that  taught  us  how  to 
feel  all  those  glorious  sunsets,  andembuedour 
young  spirit  with  the  love  and  worship  of  na- 
ture. He  it  was  that  taught  us  to  feel  that  our 
evening  prayer  was  no  idle  ceremony  to  be 
hastily  gone  throueh — that  we  might  lay  down 
our  head  on  the  pillow,  then  soon  smoothed  in 
sleep,  but  a  command  of  God,  which  a  response 
from  nature  summoned  the  humble  heart  to 
obey.  He  it  was  who  for  ever  had  at  com- 
mand wit  for  the  sportive,  wisdom  for  the  se- 
rious hour.  Fun  and  frolic  flowed  in  the  merry 
music  of  his  lips — they  lightened  from  the  gay 
glancing  of  his  eyes — and  then,  all  at  once, 
when  the  one  changed  its  measures,  and  the 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 


29 


other  gathered,  as  it  were,  a  mist  or  a  cloud, 
an  answering  sympathy  chained  our  own 
tongue,  and  darkened  our  own  countenance,  in 
intercommunion  of  spirit  fell  to  be  indeed 
divine !  It  seemed  as  if  we  knew  but  the 
words  of  language — that  he  was  a  scholar  who 
saw  into  their  very  essence.  The  books  we 
read  together  were,  every  page,  and  every  sen- 
tence of  every  page,  all  covered  over  with 
light.  Where  his  eye  fell  not  as  we  read,  all 
was  dim  or  dark,  unintelligible  or  with  imper- 
fect meanings.  Whether  we  perused  with  him 
a  volume  writ  by  a  nature  like  our  own,  or  the 
volume  of  the  earth  and  the  sky,  or  the  volume 
revealed  from  Heaven,  next  day  we  always 
knew  and  felt  that  something  had  been  added 
to  our  being.  Thus  imperceptibly  we  grew 
up  in  our  intellectual  stature,  breathing  a  purer 
moral  and  religious  air,  with  all  our  finer 
affections  towards  other  human  beings,  all  our 
kindred  and  our  kind,  touched  with  a  dearer 
domestic  tenderness,  or  with  a  sweet  benevo- 
lence that  seemed  to  our  ardent  fancy  to  em- 
brace the  dwellers  in  the  uttermost  regions  of 
the  earth.  No  secret  of  pleasure  or  pain — of 
joy  or  grief — of  fear  or  hope — had  our  heart 
to  withhold  or  conceal  from  Emilius  Godfrey. 
He  saw  it  as  it  beat  within  our  bosom,  with  all 
its  imperfections — may  we  venture  to  say,  with 
ail  its  virtues.  A  repented  fully — a  confessed 
fault — a  sin  for  which  we  were  truly  contrite 
— a  vice  (lung  from  us  with  loathing  and  with 
shame — in  such  moods  as  these,  happier  were 
we  to  see  his  serious  and  his  solemn  smile, 
than  when  in  mirth  and  merriment  we  sat  by 
his  side  in  the  social  hour  on  a  knoll  in  the 
open  sunshine,  and  the  whole  school  were  in 
ecstasies  to  hear  tales  and  stories  from  his 
genius,  even  like  a  flock  of  birds  chirping  in 
their  joy  all  newly-alighted  in  a  vernal  land. 
In  spite  of  that  diflerencc  in  our  years — or  oh  ! 
say  rather  because  that  very  difference  did 
touch  the  one  heart  with  tenderness  and  the 
other  with  reverence,  how  often  did  we  two 
wander,  like  elder  and  younger  brother,  in  the 
sunlight  and  the  moonlight  solitudes  !  Woods 
— into  whose  inmost  recesses  we  should  have 
quaked  alone  to  penetrate,  in  his  company 
were  glad  as  gardens,  through  their  most 
awful  umbrage;  and  there  was  beauty  in  the 
shadows  of  the  old  oaks.  Cataracts — in  whose 
lonesome  thunder,  as  it  pealed  into  those 
pitchy  pools,  we  durst  not  by  ourselves  have 
faced  the  spray — in  his  presence,  dinn'd  with 
a  merry  music  in  the  desert,  and  cheerful  was 
the  thin  mist  they  cast  sparkling  up  into  the 
air.  Too  severe  for  our  uncompanioned  spirit, 
then  easily  overcome  with  awe,  was  the  soli- 
tude of  those  remote  inland  lochs.  But  as  we 
walked  with  him  along  the  winding  shores, 
how  passing  sweet  the  calm  of  both  blue 
depths — how  magnificent  the  white-crested 
waves  tumbling  beneath  the  black  thunder- 
cloud! More  beautiful,  because  our  e3'es  gazed 
on  it  along  with  his,  at  the  beginning  or  the 
ending  of  some  sudden  storm,  the  Apparition 
of  the  Rainbow !  Grander  in  its  wildness, 
that  seemed  to  sweep  at  once  all  the  swinging 
and  stooping  woods,  to  our  ear,  because  his 
too  listened,  the  concerto  by  winds  and  waves 
playai  at  midnight,  when  not  one  star  was  in 


the  sky.  With  him  we  first  followed  the  Fal- 
con in  her  flight — he  showed  us  on  the  Echo- 
cliff  the  Eagle's  eyry.  To  the  thicket  he  led 
us  where  lay  couched  the  lovely-spotted  Doe, 
or  showed  us  the  mild-eyed  creature  browsing 
on  the  glade  with  her  two  fawns  at  her  side. 
But  for  him  we  should  not  then  have  seen  the 
antlers  of  the  red-deer,  for  the  Forest  was 
'indeed  a  most  savage  place,  and  haunted — 
such  was  the  superstition  at  which  they  who 
scorned  it  trembled — haunted  by  the  ghost  of 
a  huntsman  whom  a  jealous  rival  had  mur- 
dered  as  he  stooped,  aller  the  chase,  at  a  little 
mountain  well  that  ever  since  oozed  out  blood. 
What  converse  passed  between  us  two  in  all 
those  still  shadowy  solitudes !  Into  what 
depths  of  human  nature  did  he  teach  our  won- 
dering eyes  to  look  down  !  Oh !  what  was  to 
become  of  us,  we  sometimes  thought  in  sad- 
ness that  all  at  once  made  our  spirits  sink — 
like  a  lark  falling  suddenly  to  earth,  struck  by 
the  fear  of  some  unwonted  shadow  from  above 
— what  was  to  become  of  us  when  the  man- 
date should  arrive  fur  him  to  leave  the  Manse 
for  ever,  and  sail  away  in  a  ship  to  India  never 
more  to  return !  Ever  as  that  dreaded  day 
drew  nearer,  more  frequent  was  the  haze  in 
our  eyes;  and  in  our  blindness,  we  knew  not 
that  such  tears  ought  to  have  been  far  more 
rueful  still,  for  that  he  then  lay  under  orders 
for  a  longer  and  more  lamentable  voyage — a 
voyage  over  a  narrow  streight  to  the  eternal 
shore.  All — all  at  once  he  drooped;  on  one 
fatal  morning  the  dread  decay  began — with  no 
forewarning,  the  springs  on  which  his  being 
had  so  lightly — so  proudly — so  grandly  moved, 
gave  way.  Between  one  Sabbath  and  another 
his  bright  eyes  darkened — and  while  all  the 
people  were  assembled  at  the  sacrament,  the 
soul  of  Emilius  Godfrey  soared  up  to  Heaven. 
It  was  indeed  a  dreadful  death,  serene  and 
sainted  though  it  were — and  not  a  hall — not  a 
house — not  a  hut — not  a  shieling  within  all  the 
circle  of  those  wide  mountains,  that  did  not  on 
that  night  mourn  as  if  it  had  lost  a  son.  AH 
the  vast  parish  attended  his  funeral — Low- 
landers  and  Highlanders  in  their  own  garb  of 
grief.  And  have  time  and  tempest  now  black- 
ened the  white  marble  of  that  monument — is 
that  inscription  now  hard  to  be  read — the  name 
of  Emilius  Godfrey  in  green  obliteration — nor 
haply  one  surviving  M'ho  ever  saw  the  light 
of  the  countenance  of  him  there  interred ! 
Forgotten  as  if  he  had  never  been !  for  few 
were  that  glorious  orphan's  kindred — and  they 
lived  in  a  foreign  land — forgotten  but  by  one 
heart,  faithful  through  all  the  chances  and 
changes  of  this  restless  world!  And  therein 
enshrined  among  all  its  holiest  remembrances, 
shall  be  the  image  of  Emilius  Godfrey,  till  it 
too,  like  his,  shall  be  but  dust  and  ashes  ! 

Oh !  blame  not  boys  for  so  soon  forgetting 
one  another — in  absence  or  in  death.  Yet  for- 
getting is  not  just  the  very  word ;  call  it  rather 
a  reconcilement  to  doom  and  destiny — in  thus 
obeying  a  benign  law  of  nature  that  soon 
streams  sunshine  over  the  shadows  of  the 
grave.  Not  otherwise  could  all  the  ongoings 
of  this  world  be  continued.  The  nascent  spirit 
outgrows  much  in  which  it  once  found  all  de- 
light;  and  thoughts  delightful  still,  thoughts 
c2 


30 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


of  the  faces  and  the  voices  of  the  dead,  perish 
not,  lying  sometimes  in  slumber — sometimes 
in  sleep.  It  belongs  not  to  the  blessed  season 
and  genius  of  youth,  to  hug  to  its  heart  useless 
and  unavailing  griefs.  Images  of  the  well- 
beloved,  when  they  themselves  are  in  the 
mould,  come  and  go,  no  unfrequent  visitants, 
through  the  meditative  hush  of  solitude.  But 
our  main  business — our  prime  joys  and  our 
prime  sorrows — ought  to  be — must  be  with  the 
living.  Duty  demands  it;  and  Love,  who 
would  pine  to  death  over  the  bones  of  the  dead, 
soon  fastens  upon  other  objects  with  eyes  and 
voices  to  smile  and  whisper  an  answer  to  all 
his  vows.  So  was  it  with  us.  Ere  the  mid- 
summer sun  had  withered  the  flowers  that 
spring  had  sprinkled  over  our  Godfrey's  grave, 
youth  vindicated  its  own  right  to  happiness ; 
and  we  felt  that  we  did  wrong  to  visit  too  often 
that  corner  in  the  kirkyard.  No  fears  had  we 
of  any  too  oblivious  tendencies ;  in  our  dreams 
we  saw  him — most  often  all  alive  as  ever — 
sometimes  a  phantom  away  from  that  grave  ! 
If  the  morning  light  was  frequently  hard  to  be 
endured,  bursting  suddenly  upon  us  ali)ng  with 
the  feeling  that  he  was  dead,  it  more  frequent- 
ly cheered  and  gladdened  us  with  resignation, 
and  sent  us  forth  a  fit  playmate  to  the  dawn 
that  rang  with  all  sounds  of  J03'.  A^ain  we 
found  ourselves  angling  down  the  river,  or 
along  the  loch — once  more  following  the  flight 
of  the  Falcon  along  the  woods — eying  the 
Eagle  on  the  Echo-ClUf.  Days  .passed  by,  with- 
out so  much  as  one  thought  of  Emilius  God- 
frey— pursuing  our  pastime  with  all  our  pas- 
sion, reading  our  books  intently — just  as  if  he 
had  never  been  !  But  often  and  often,  too,  we 
thought  we  saw  his  figure  coming  down  the 
hill  straight  towards  us — his  verj'  figure — we 
could  not  be  deceived — but  the  love-raised 
ghost  disappeared  on  a  sudden — the  grief- 
woven  spectre  melted  into  the  mist.  The 
strength,  that  formerly  had  come  from  his 
counsels,  now  began  to  grow  up  of  itself  with- 
in our  own  unassisted  being.  The  world  of 
nature  became  more  our  own,  moulded  and 
modified  by  all  our  own  feelings  and  fancies  ; 
and  with  a  bolder  and  more  original  eye  we 
saw  the  smoke  from  the  sprinkled  cottages, 
and  read  the  faces  of  the  mountaineers  on 
their  way  to  their  work,  or  commg  and  going 
to  the  house  of  God. 

Then  this  was  to  be  our  last  year  in  the 
parish — now  dear  to  us  as  our  birth-place; 
nay,  itself  our  very  birth-place — for  in  it  from 
the  darkness  of  infancy  had  our  soul  been 
born.  Once  gone  and  away  from  the  region 
of  cloud  and  mountain,  we  felt  that  most  pro- 
bably never  more  should  we  return.  For 
others,  who  thought  they  knew  us  better  than 
we  did  ourselves,  had  chalked  out  a  future 
life  for  young  Christopher  North— a  life  that 
was  sure  to  lead  to  honour,  and  riches,  and  a 
splendid  name.  Therefore  we  determined 
with  a  strong,  resolute,  insatiate  spirit  of  pas- 
sion, to  make  the  most— the  best— of  the  few 
months  that  remained  to  us,  of  thai  our  wild, 
free,  and  romantic  existence,  as  yet  untram- 
melled by  those  inexorable  laws,  which,  once 
launched  into  the  worid,  all  alilce— young  and 
old— must  obey.    Our  books  were  flung  aside— 


nor  did  our  old  master  and  minister  frown — 
for  he  grudged  not  to  the  boy  he  loved  the 
remnant  of  the  dream  about  to  be  rolled  away 
like  the  dawn's  rosy  clouds.  We  demanded 
with  our  eye — not  with  our  voice — one  long 
holyday,  throughout  that  our  last  autumn,  on 
to  the  pale  farewell  blossoms  of  the  Christ- 
mas rose.  With  our  rod  we  went  earlier  to 
the  loch  or  river;  but  we  had  not  known  tho- 
roughly our  own  soul — for  now  we  angled  less 
passionately — less  perseveringly  than  was  our 
wont  of  yore — sitting  in  a  pensive — a  melan- 
choly— a  miserable  dream,  by  the  dashing 
waterfall  or  the  murmuring  wave.  With  our 
gun  we  plunffcd  earlier  in  the  morning  into 
the  forest,  and  we  returned  later  at  eve — but 
less  earnest — less  eaecr  were  we  to  h,car  the 
cushat's  moan  from  his  yew-tree — 10  see  the 
hawk's  shadow  on  the  glade,  as  he  hung  aloft 
on  the  sky.  A  thousand  dead  thoughts  came 
to  life  again  in  the  gloom  of  the  woods — and 
we  sometimes  did  wring  our  hands  in  an 
agony  of  jjrief.  to  know  that  our  eyes  should 
not  behold  the  birch-tree  brightening  there 
with  another  spring. 

Then  every  visit  we  paid  to  cottage  or  to 
shielinc  was  felt  to  be  a  farewell ;  there  was 
somethin?  mournful  in  the  smiles  on  the  sweet 
faces  of  the  ruddy  rustics,  with  their  silken 
snoods,  to  whom  we  used  to  whisper  harmless 
love-meanings,  in  which  there  was  no  evil 
ffuile;  we  regarded  the  solemn  toil-and-care- 
worn  countenances  of  the  old  with  a  profounder 
emotion  than  had  ever  touched  our  hearts  in 
the  hour  of  our  more  thoughtless  joy;  and  the 
whole  life  of  those  dwellers  among  the  woods, 
and  the  moors,  and  the  mountains,  seemed  to 
us  far  more  aflccting  now  that  wc  saw  deeper 
into  it,  in  the  light  of  a  melancholy  sprung 
from  the  conviction  that  the  time  was  close  at 
hand  when  we  should  mingle  with  it  no  more. 
The  thoughts  that  possessed  our  most  secret 
bosom  failed  not  by  the  least  observant  to  be 
discovered  in  our  open  eyes.  They  who  had 
liked  us  before,  now  loved  us;  our  faults,  our 
follies,  the  insolencies  of  our  reckless  boy- 
hood, were  all  forgotten ;  whatever  had  been 
our  sins,  pride  towards  the  poor  was  never 
among  the  number;  wc  had  shunned  not 
stooping  our  head  beneath  the  humblest  lintel; 
our  mite  had  been  given  to  the  widow  who  had 
lost  her  own  ;  quarrelsome  with  the  young  we 
might  sometimes  have  been,  for  boyblood  is 
soon  heated,  and  boils  before  a  defying  eye ; 
but  in  one  thing  at  least  we  were  Spartans,  we 
revered  the  head  of  old  age. 

And  many  at  least  were  the  kind — some  the 
sod  farewells,  ere  long  whispered  by  us  at 
gloaming  amortg  the  glens.  Let  them  rest  for 
ever  silent  amidst  that  music  in  the  memory 
which  is  felt,  not  heard — its  blessing  mute 
though  breathing,  like  an  inarticulate  prayer! 
But  to  Thee — O  palest  Phantom — clothed  in 
white  raiment,  not  like  unto  a  ghost  risen  with 
its  grave-clothes  to  appal,  but  like  a  seraph 
descending  from  the  skies  to  bless — unto  Thee 
will  we  dare  to  speak,  as  through  the  mist  of 
years  back  comes  thy  yet  unfaded  beauty, 
charming  us,  while  we  cannot  choose  but  weep 
with  the  selfsame  vision  that  often  glided  before 
us  long  ago  in  the  wilderness,  and  at  the  sound 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 


31 


«f  our  voice  would  pause  for  a  little  while,  and 
then  pass  by,  like  a  white  bird  from  the  sea, 
floating  unscared  close  by  the  shepherd's  head, 
or  alighting  to  trim  its  plumes  on  a  knoll  far 
np  an  inland  glen!  Death  seems  not  to  have 
touched  that  face,  pale  though  it  be — lifelike  is 
the  waving  of  those  gentle  hands — and  the 
soft,  sweet,  low  music  which  now  we  hear, 
steals  not  sure  from  lips  hushed  by  the  burial 
mould  !  Restored  by  the  power  of  love,  she 
stands  before  us  as  she  stood  of  yore.  Not 
one  of  all  the  hairs  of  her  golden  head  was 
singed  by  the  lightning  that  shivered  the  tree 
under  which  the  chi'd  had  run  for  shelter  from 
the  flashing  sky.  But  in  a  moment  the  blue 
light  in  her  dewy  eyes  was  dimmed — and 
never  again  did  she  behold  either  flower  or 
star.  Yet  all  the  images  of  all  the  things  she 
bad  loved  remained  in  her  memory,  clear  and 
distinct  as  the  things  thenTselves  before  unex- 
tinguished eyes — and  ere  three  summers  had 
flown  over  her  head,  which,  like  the  blossom 
of  some  fair  perennial  flower,  in  heaven's 
gracious  dew  and  sunshine  each  season  lifted 
its  loveliness  higher  and  higher  in  the  litrht — 
she  could  trip  her  singing  way  through  the 
wide  wilderness,  all  by  her  joyful  self,  led,  as 
all  believed,  nor  erred  they  in  so  believing,  by 
an  angel's  hand !  When  the  primroses  peeped 
through  the  reviving  grass  upon  the  vernal 
braes,  they  seemed  to  give  themselves  into  her 
fingers;  and  'twas  thought  they  hung  longer 
unfaded  round  her  neck  or  forehead  than  if 
they  had  been  left  to  drink  the  dew  on  their 
native  bed.  The  linnets  ceased  not  their  lays, 
though  her  garment  touched  the  broom-stalk 
on  which  they  sang.  The  cushat,  as  she  thrid 
her  way  through  the  wood,  continued  to  croon 
in  her  darksome  tree — and  the  lark,  although 
just  dropped  from  the  cloud,  was  cheered  by 
her  presence  into  a  new  passion  of  song,  and 
mounted  over  her  head,  as  if  it  were  his  first 
matin  hymn.  All  the  creatures  of  the  earth 
and  air  manifestly  loved  the  Wanderer  of  the 
Wilderness — and  as  for  human  beings,  she 
was  named,  in  their  pity,  their  wonder,  and 
their  delight,  the  Blind  Beauty  of  the  Moor! 

She  was  an  only  child,  and  her  mother  had 
died  in  giving  her  birth.  And  now  her  father, 
stricken  by  one  of  the  many  cruel  diseases 
that  shorten  the  lives  of  shepherds  on  the  hills, 
was  bed-ridden — and  he  was  poor.  Of  all 
words  ever  syllabled  by  human  lips,  the  most 
blessed  is — Charily.  No  manna  now  in  the 
wilderness  is  rained  from  heaven — for  the 
mouths  of  the  hungry  need  it  not  in  this  our 
Christian  land.  A  few  goats  feeding  among 
the  rocks  gave  them  milk,  and  there  was  bread 
for  them  in  each  neighbour's  hAtse — neighbour 
though  miles  afar — as  the  sacred  duty  came 
round — and  the  unrepining  poor  sent  the  grate- 
ful child  away  with  their  prayers. 

One  evening,  returning  to  the  hut  with  her 
tisual  song,  she  danced  up  to  her  father's  face 
on  his  rushy  bed,  and  it  was  cold  in  death.  If 
she  shrieked — if  she  fainted — there  was  but 
one  Ear  that  heard,  one  Eye  that  saw  her  in 
her  swoon.  Not  now  floating  light  like  a 
small  moving  cloud  unwilling  to  leave  the 
flowery  braes,  though  it  be  to  melt  in  heaven, 
but  driven  along  like  a  shroud  of  flying  mist 


before  the  tempest,  she  came  upon  us  in  the 
midst  of  that  dreary  moss ;  and  at  the  sound 
of  our  voicC;  fell  down  with  clasped  hands  at 
our  feet — "My  father's  dead!"  Had  the  hut 
put  already  on  the  strange,  dim,  desolate  look 
of  mortality  1  For  people  came  walking  fast 
down  the  braes,  and  in  a  little  while  there  was 
a  group  round  us,  and  we  bore  her  back  again 
to  her  dwelling  in  our  arms.  As  for  us,  we 
had  been  on  our  way  to  bid  the  fair  creature 
and  her  father  farewell.  How  could  she  have 
lived — an  letter  orphan — in  such  a  world  ! 
The  holy  power  that  is  in  Innocence  would  for 
ever  have  remained  with  her;  but  Innocence 
longs  to  be  away  when  her  sister  Joy  has  de- 
parted ;  and  it  is  sorrowful  to  see  the  one  on 
earth,  when  the  other  has  gone  to  Heaven ! 
This  sorrow  none  of  us  had  long  to  see ;  for 
though  a  flower,  when  withered  at  the  root,  and 
doomed  ere  eve  to  perish,  may  yet  look  to  the 
careless  eye  the  same  as  when  it  blossomed  in 
its  pride — yet  its  leaves,  still  green,  are  not  as 
once  they  were — its  bloom,  though  fair,  is 
faded — and  at  set  of  sun,  the  dews  shall  find  it 
in  decay,  and  fall  unfelt  on  its  petals.  Ere 
Sabbath  came,  the  orphan  child  was  dead. 
Methinks  we  see  now  her  little  funeral.  Her 
birth  had  been  the  humbles,  of  the  humble; 
and  though  all  in  life  had  loved  her,  it  was 
thought  best  thai  none  should  be  asked  to  the 
funeral  of  her  and  her  father  but  two  or  three 
friends;  the  old  clergyman  himself  walked  at 
the  head  of  the  father's  coffin— we  at  the  head 
of  the  daughter's— for  this  was  granted  unto 
our  exceeding  love; — and  thus  passed  away 
for  ever  the  Blind  Beauty  of  the  Moor ! 

Yet  sometimes  to  a  more  desperate  passion 
than  had  ever  before  driven  us  over  the  wilds, 
did  we  deliver  up  ourselves  entire,  and  pursue 
our  pastime  like  one  doomed  to  be  a  wild 
huntsman  under  some  spell  of  magic.  Let  us, 
ere  we  go  away  from  these  high  haunts  and  be 
no  more  seen — let  us  away  far  up  the  Great 
Glen,  beyond  the  Echo-Cliff,  and  with  our  rifle 
— 'twas  once  the  rifle  of  Emilius  Godfrey — let 
us  stalk  the  red-deer.  In  that  chase  or  forest 
the  antlers  lay  not  thick  as  now  they  lie  on  the 
Athole  Braes;  they  were  still  a  rare  sight— 
and  often  and  often  had  Godfrey  and  we  gone' 
up  and  down  the  Glen,  without  a  single  glimpse 
of  buck  or  doe  rising  up  from  among  the  hea- 
ther. But  as  the  true  angler  will  try  every 
cast  on  the  river,  miles  up  and  down,  if  he  has 
reason  to  know  that  but  one  single  fish  has  run 
up  from  the  sea— so  we,  a  true  hunter,  neither 
grudged  nor  wearied  to  stand  for  hours,  still  as 
the  h'eron  by  the  stream,  hardly  in  hope,  but 
satisfied  with  the  possibility,  that  a  deer  might 
pass  by  us  in  the  desert.  Steadiest  and  strong- 
est is  self-fed  passion  springing  in  spite  of  cir- 
cumstance. When  blows  the  warm  showery 
south-west  wind,  the  trouts  turn  up  their  yellow 
sides  at  every  dropping  of  the  fly  upon  the  curl 
ing  water — and  the  angler  is  soon  sated  with 
the  perpetual  play.     But  once— twice— thrice 

during   a   long   blustering  day — the   sullen 

plunge  of  a  salmon  is  suflicieiit  for  that  day's 
joy.  Still,  therefore,  still  as  a  cairn  that  stands 
for  ever  on  the  hill,  or  rather  as  the  shadow  on 
a  dial,  that  though  it  moves  is  never  seen  to 
move,  day  after  day  were  we  on  our  station  in 


32 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


the  Great  Glen.  A  'oud,  wild,  wrathful,  and 
savage  cry  from  some  huge  animal,  made  our 
heart  leap  to  our  mouth,  and  bathed  our  fore- 
head in  sweat.  We  looked  up — and  a  red- 
deer — a  stag  of  ten — the  king  of  the  forest — 
stood  with  all  his  antlers,  snuffing  the  wind, 
but  yet  blind  to  our  figure  overshadowed  by  a 
rock.  The  rifle-ball  pierced  his  heart — and 
leaping  up  far  higher  than  our  head,  he  tum- 
bled in  terrific  death,  and  lay  stone-still  before 
our  starting  eyes  amid  the  rustling  of  the 
strong-bented  heather !  There  we  stood  sur- 
veying him  for  a  long  triumphing  hour. 
Ghastly  were  his  glazed  eyes — and  ghastlier 
his  long  bloody  tongue,  bitten  through  at  the 
very  root  in  agony.  The  branches  of  his  ant- 
lers pierced  the  sward  like  swords.  His  bulk 
seemed  mightier  in  death  even  than  when  it 
was  crowned  with  that  kingly  head,  snuffing 
the  north  wind.  In  other  two  hours  we  were 
down  at  Moor-edge  and  up  again,  with  an 
eager  train,  to  the  head  of  the  Great  Glen, 
coming  and  going  a  distance  of  a  dozen  long 
miles.  A  hay-wagon  forced  its  way  through 
the  bogs  and  over  the  braes — and  on  our  return 
into  the  inhabited  country,  we  were  met  by 
shoals  of  peasants,  men,  women,  and  children, 
huzzaing  over  the  Prey ;  for  not  for  many  years 
— 'never  since  the  funeral  of  the  old  lord — had 
the  antlers  of  a  red-deer  been  seen  by  them 
trailing  along  the  heather. 

Fifty  years  and  more — and  oh  !  my  weary 
soul!  half  a  century  took  a  long  long  lime  to 
die  away,  in  gloom  and  in  glory,  in  pain  and 
pleasure,  in  storms  through  which  Mere  afraid 
to  fly  even  the  spirit's  most  eagle-winged  rap- 
tures, in  calms  that  rocked  all  her  feelings  like 
azure-plumed  halcyons  to  rest — though  now  to 
look  back  upon  it,  what  seems  it  all  but  a 
transitory  dream  of  toil  and  trouble,  of  which 
the  smiles,  the  sighs,  the  tears,  the  groans, 
were  all  alike  vain  as  the  forgotten  sunbeams 
and  the  clouds !  Fifty  years  and  more  are 
gone — and  this  is  the  Twelfth  of  August, 
Eighteen  hundred  and  twentv-eight ;  and  all 
the  Highland  mountains  have  since  dawn  been 
astir,  and  thundering  to  the  impetuous  sports- 
men's joys!  Our  spirit  burns  within  us,  but 
our  limbs  are  palsied,  and  our  feet  must  brush 
the  heather  no  more.  Lo !  how  beautifully 
these  fast-travelling  pointers  do  their  work  on 
that  black  mountain's  breast!  intersecting  it 
into  parallelograms,  and  squares,  and  circles, 
and  now  all  astoop  on  a  sudden,  as  if  frozen  to 
death  !  Higher  up  among  the  rocks,  and  clitTs, 
and  stones,  we  see  a  stripling,  whose  ambition 
it  is  to  strike  the  sky  with  his  forehead,  and 


wet  his  hair  in  the  misty  cloud,  pursuing  the 
ptarmigan,  now  in  their  variegated  summer- 
dress,  seen  even  among  the  unmelted  snows. 
The  scene  shifts — and  high  up  on  the  heath 
above  the  Linn  of  Dee,  in  the  Forest  of  Brae- 
mar,  the  Thane — God  bless  him— has  stalked 
the  red-deer  to  his  lair,  and  now  lays  his  un- 
erring rifle  at  rest  on  the  stump  of  the  Witch's 
Oak.  Never  shall  Eld  deaden  our  sympathies 
with  the  pastimes  of  our  fellow  men  any  more 
than  with  their  highest  raptures,  their  pro- 
foundest  grief.  Blessings  on  the  head  of  every 
true  sportsman  on  flood,  or  field,  or  fell ;  nor 
shall  we  take  it  at  all  amiss  should  any  one  of 
them,  in  return  for  the  pleasure  he  may  have 
enjoyed  from  these  our  Fyttes,  perused  in 
smoky  cabin  during  a  rainy  day,  to  the  peat- 
reek  flavour  of  the  glorious  Glenlivet,  send  us, 
by  the  Inverness  coach,  Aberdeen  steam-pack- 
et, or  any  other  rapid  conveyance,  a  basket  of 
game,  red,  black,  or  brown,  or  peradvenlure  a 
haunch  of  the  red-deer. 

Reader!  be  thou  a  male,  bold  as  the  Tercel 
Gentle — or  a  female,  fair  as,  the  Falcon — a 
male,  stern  as  an  old  Stag — or  a  female,  soft 
as  a  young  Doc — we  entreat  thee  to  think 
kindly  of  Us  and  of  our  Article — and  to  look 
in  love  or  in  friendship  on  Christopher  in  his 
Sporting  Jacket,  now  come  to  the  close  of  his 
Three  F'yttes,  into  which  he  had  fallcn^-out  of 
one  into  another — and  from  which  he  has  now 
been  revived  by  the  application  of  a  little  salt 
to  his  mouth,  and  then  a  caulker.  Nor  think 
that,  rambling  as  we  have  been,  somewhat 
after  the  style  of  thinking  common  in  sleep, 
there  has  been  no  method  in  our  madness,  no 
htriilus  ordo  in  our  dream.  All  the  pages  are 
instinct  with  one  spirit — our  thoughts  and  our 
feelings  have  all  followed  one  another,  ac- 
cording to  the  most  approved  principles  of 
association — and  a  fine  proportion  has  been 
unconsciously  preserved.  The  article  may 
be  likened  to  some  nctble  tree,  which — al- 
though here  and  there  a  branch  have  somewhat 
overgrown  its  brother  above  or  below  it,  an 
arm  stretched  itself  out  into  further  gloom  on 
this  side  than  on  that,  so  that  there  are  irregu- 
larities in  the  umbrage — is  still  disfigured  not 
by  those  sports  and  freaks  of  nature  working 
on  a  great  scale,  and  stands,  magnificent  ob- 
ject !  equal  to  an  old  castle,  on  the  clifl"  above 
the  cataract.  Wo  and  shame  to  the  sacriSe- 
gious  hand  that  would  lop  away  one  budding 
bough!  Undisturbed  let  the  tame  and  wild 
creatures  of  the  region,  in  storm  or  sunshine, 
find  shelter  or  shade  under  the  calm  circum- 
ference of  its  green  old  age. 


TALE  OF  EXPIATION. 


33 


TALE  or  EXPIATION. 


Maiicahet  BunxsiDE  was  an  orphan.  Her 
parents,  who  had  been  the  poorest  people  in 
the  parish,  had  died  when  she  was  a  mere 
child ;  and  as  they  had  left  no  near  relatives, 
there  were  few  or  none  to  care  much  about 
the  desolate  creature,  who  might  be  well  said 
to  have  been  left  friendless  in  the  world.  True 
that  the  feeling  of  charity  is  seldom  wholly 
wanting  in  any  heart;  but  it  is  generally  but  a 
cold  feeling  among  hard-working  folic,  towards 
objects  out  of  the  narrow  circle  of  their  own 
family  affections,  and  selfishness  has  a  ready 
and  strong  excuse  in  necessity.  There  seems, 
indeed,  to  be  a  sort  of  chance  in  the  lot  of  the 
orphan  offspring  of  paupers.  On  some  the 
eye  of  Christian  benevolence  falls  at  the  very 
first  moment  of  their  uttermost  destitution — 
and  their  worst  sorrows,  instead  of  beginning, 
terminate  with  the  tears  shed  over  their  pa- 
rents' graves.  They  are  taken  by  the  hands, 
as  soon  as  their  hands  have  been  stretched 
out  for  protection,  and  admitted  as  inmates 
into  households,  whose  doors,  had  their  fathers 
and  mothers  been  alive,  they  would  never 
have  darkened.  The  light  of  comfort  falls 
upon  tlicm  during  the  gloom  of  grief,  and 
attends  them  all  their  days.  Others,  again, 
are  overlooked  at  the  first  fall  of  affliction,  as 
if  by  some  unaccountable  fatality;  the  wretch- 
edness with  which  all  liavc  become  familiar, 
no  one  very  tenderly  pities  ;  and  thus  the  or- 
phan, reconciling  herself  to  the  extreme  hard- 
ships of  her  condition,  lives  on  uncheered  by 
those  sympathies  out  of  which  grow  both 
happiness  and  virtue,  and  yielding  by  degrees 
to  the  constant  pressure  of  her  lot,  becomes 
poor  in  spirit  as  in  estate,  and  either  vegetates 
like  an  almost  worthless  weed  that  is  care- 
lessly trodden  on  by  every  foot,  or  if  by  nature 
born  a  flower,  in  time  loses  her  lustre,  and  all 
her  days  leads  the  life  not  so  much  of  a  ser- 
vant as  of  a  slave. 

Such,  till  she  was  twelve  years  old,  had  been 
the  fate  of  Margaret  Burnside.  Of  a  slender 
form  and  weak  constitution,  she  had  never 
been  able  for  much  work;  and  thus  from  one 
discontented  and  harsh  master  and  mistress  to 
another,  she  had  been  transferred  from  house 
to  house — always  the  poorest — till  she  came 
to  be  looked  on  as  an  encumbrance  rather  than 
a  help  in  any  family,  and  thought  hardly  worth 
her  bread.  Sad  and  sickly  she  sat  on  the  braes 
herding  the  kine.  It  was  supposed  that  she 
was  in  a  consumption — and  as  the  shadow  of 
death  seemed  to  lie  on  the  neglected  creature's 
face,  a  feeling  something  like  love  was  awa- 
kened towards  her  in  the  heart  of  pity,  for 
which  she  showed  her  gratitude  by  still  attend- 
ing to  all  household  tasks  with  an  alacrity  be- 
yond her  strength.  Few  doubted  that  she  was 
dying — and  it  \,as  plain  that  she  thought  so 
herself;  for  the  Bible,  which,  in  her  friendless- 
ness,  she  had  always  read  more  than  other 
children  who  were  too  happy  to  reflect  often 
ou  the  Word  of  that  Being  from  whom  their 
5 


happiness  flowed,  was  now,  when  leisure  per- 
mitted, seldom  or  never  out  of  her  hands  ;  and 
in  lonely  places,  where  there  was  no  human 
ear  to  hearken,  did  the  dying  girl  often  support 
her  heart,  when  quaking  in  natural  fears  of 
the  grave,  by  singing  to  herself  hymns  and 
psalms.     But  her  hour  was  not  yet  come — 
though  by  the   inscrutable  decrees  of  Provi- 
dence doomed  to  be  hideous  with  almost  inex- 
piable guilt.    As  for  herself — she  was  innocent 
as  the  linnet  that  sang  beside  her  in  the  broom, 
and  innocent  was    she   to   be   up  to  the  last 
throbbings  of  her  religious  heart.     When  the 
sunshine  fell  on  the  leaves  of  her  Bible,  the 
orphan   seemed   to    see   in   the    holy   words, 
brightening  through  the  radiance,  assurances 
of  f^orgiveness  of  all  her  sins — small  sins  in- 
deed— yet  to   her  humble  and  contrite  heart 
exceeding  great — and  to  be  pardoned  only  by 
the  intercession  of  Him  who  died  for  us  on  the 
tree.     Often,  when  clouds  were  in  the  sky,  and 
blackness  covered  the  Book,  hope  died  away 
from    the   discoloured   page — and   the   lonely 
creature  wept  and  sobbed  over  the  doom  de- 
nounced  on    all  who   sin,  and   repent   not — 
whether  in  deed  or  in  thought.     And  thus  reli- 
gion became  within  her  an   awful  thing — till, 
in  her  resignation,  she  feared  to  die.     But  look 
on  that  flower  by  the  hill-side  path,  withered, 
as  it  seems,  beyond  the  power  of  sun  and  air 
^nd  dew  and  rain  to  restore  it  to  life.    Next 
day,  you   happen   to   return  to  the  place,  its 
leaves  are  of  a  dazzling  green,  its  blossoms  of 
a  dazzling  crimson.  So  was  it  with  this  Orphan. 
Nature,  as  if  kindling  towards  her  in  sudden 
love,  not  only  restored  her  in  a  few  weeks  to 
life—but  to  perfect  health ;  and  ere-long  she, 
whom  few  had  looked  at,  and  for  whom  still 
fewer  cared,  was  acknowledged  to  be  the  fair- 
est girl  in  all  the  parish— while  she  continued 
to  sit,  as  she  had  always  done  from  her  very 
childhood,  on  the  poor's  form  in  the  lobby  of  the 
kirk.     Such  a  face,  such  a  figure,  and  such  a 
manner,  in  one  so  poorly  attired  and  so  meanly 
placed,  attracted  the  eyes  of  the  young  Ladies 
in  the  Patron's  Gallery.     Margaret  Burnside 
was  taken  under  their  especial  protection- 
sent  for  two  years  to  a  superior  school,  where 
she  was  taught  all  things  useful  for  persons  in 
humble  life— and  while   yet   scarcely  fiileen, 
returning  to  her  native  parish,  was  appointed 
teacher  of  a  small  school  of  her  own,  to  which 
were  sent  all  the  girls  who  could  be  spared 
from  home,  from  those  of  parents  poor  as  her 
own  had  been,  up  to  those  of  the  farmers  and 
small  proprietors,  who  knew  the  blessings  of 
a   good   education — and   that   without  it,  the 
minister  may  preach  in  vain.     And  thus  Mar- 
garet Burnside  grew  and  blossomed  like  the 
lily  of  the  field— and  every  eye  blessed  her— 
and  she  drew  her  breath   in  gratitude,  piety, 
and  peace. 

Thus  a  few  happy  and  useful  years  passed 
by— and  it  was  forgotten  by  all— but  herself— 
that  Margaret  Burnside  was  an  orphan.    But 


34 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


to  be  without  one  near  and  dear  blood-relative 
in  all  the  world,  must  often,  even  to  the  happy 
heart  of  youthf^ul  innocence,  be  more  than  a 
pensive — a  painful  thought;  and  therefore, 
though  Margaret  Burnside  was  always  cheer- 
ful among  her  little  scholars,  yet  in  the  retire- 
ment of  her  own  room,  (a  pretty  parlour,  with 
a  window  looking  into  a  flower-garden,)  and 
on  her  walks  among  the  braes,  her  mien  was 
somewhat  melancholy,  and  her  eyes  wore  that 
touching  expression,  which  seems  doubtfully 
to  denote — neither  joy  nor  sadness — but  a  habit 
of  soul  which,  in  its  tranquillity,  still  partakes 
of  the  mournful,  as  if  memory  dwelt  often  on 
past  sorrows,  and  hope  scarcely  ventured  to 
indulge  in  dreams  of  future  repose.  That 
profound  orphan-feeling  embued  her  whole 
character;  and  sometimes,  when  the  young 
Ladies  from  the  Castle  smiled  praises  upon 
her,  she  retired  in  gratitude  to  her  chamber — 
and  wept. 

Among  the  friends  at  whose  houses  she 
visited  were  the  family  at  Moorside,  the  high- 
est hill-farm  in  the  parish,  and  on  which  her 
father  had  been  a  hind.  It  consisted  of  the 
master,  a  man  whose  head  was  gray,  his  son 
and  daughter,  and  a  grandchild,  her  scholar, 
whose  parents  were  dead.  Gilbert  Adamson 
had  long  been  a  widower — indeed  his  wife  had 
never  been  in  the  parish,  but  had  died  abroad. 
He  had  been  a  soldier  in  his  youth  and  prime 
of  manhood ;  and  when  he  came  to  settle  at 
Moorside,  he  had  been  looked  at  with  no  vcrj* 
friendly  eyes ;  for  evil  rumours  of  his  charac- 
ter had  preceded  his  arrival  there — and  in  that 
peaceful  pastoral  parish,  far  removed  from  the 
world's  strife,  suspicions,  without  any  good 
reason  perhaps,  had  attached  themselves  to 
the  morality  and  religion  of  a  man,  who  had 
seen  much  foreign  service,  and  had  passed  the 
best  years  of  his  life  in  the  wars.  It  was  long 
before  these  suspicions  faded  away,  and  with 
some  they  still  existed  in  an  invincible  feeling 
of  dislike  or  even  aversion.  But  the  natural 
fierceness  and  ferocity  which,  as  these  peaceful 
dwellers  among  the  hills  imagined,  had  at  first, 
in  spite  of  his  efforts  to  control  them,  often 
dangerously  exhibited  themselves  in  fiery  out- 
breaks, advancing  age  had  gradually  subdued ; 
Gilbert  Adamson  had  grown  a  hard-w<irking 
and  industrious  man;  affected,  if  he  followed 
it  not  in  sincerity,  even  an  austerely  religious 
life;  and  a?,  he  possessed  more  than  common 
sagacity  and  intelligence,  he  had  acquired  at 
last,  if  not  won,  a  certain  ascendency  in  the 
parish,  even  over  many  whose  hearts  never 
opened  nor  warmed  towards  him — so  that  he 
■was  now  an  elder  of  the  kirk— and,  as  the 
most  un\^^lling  were  obliged  to  acknow]e<lge, 
a  just  steward  to  the  poor.  His  gray  hairs 
were  not  honoured,  but  it  would  not  be  too 
much  to  say  that  they  were  respected.  Many 
■who  had  doubled  him  before  came  to  think 
they  had  done  him  injustice,  and  sought  to 
wipe  away  their  fault  by  regarding  him  with 
■esteem,  and  showing  themselves  willing  to 
interchange  all  neighbourly  kindnesses  and 
services  with  all  the  family  at  Moorside.  His 
son,  though  somewhat  wild  and  unsteady,  and 
too  much  addicted  to  the  fascinating  pastimes 
ff  flood  and  field,  often  so  ruinous  to  the  sons 


of  labour,  and  rarely  long  pursued  against  the 
law  without  vitiating  the  whole  character,  was 
a  favourite  with  all  the  parish.  Singularly 
handsome,  and  with  manners  above  his  birth, 
Ludovic  was  welcome  wherever  he  went,  both 
with  young  and  old.  No  merry-making  could 
deserve  the  name  without  him;  and  at  all 
meetings  for  the  display  of  feats  of  strength 
and  agility,  far  and  wide,  through  more  coun- 
ties than  one, he  was  the  champion.  Nor  had  he 
received  a  mean  education.  All  that  the  parish 
schoolmaster  could  teach  he  knew  ;  and  having 
been  the  darling  companion  of  all  the  gentle- 
man's sons  in  the  Manse,  the  faculties  of  his 
mind  had  kept  pace  with  theirs,  and  from  them 
he  had  caught  unconsciously  that  demeanour 
so  far  superior  to  what  could  have  been  ex- 
pected from  one  in  his  humble  condition,  but 
which,  at  the  same  time,  seemed  so  congenial 
with  his  happy  nature  as  to  be  readily  acknow- 
ledged to  be  one  of  its  original  gifts.  Of  his 
sister,  Alice,  it  is  sullicient  to  say,  that  she  was 
the  bosom-friend  of  Margaret  Burnside,  and 
that  all  who  saw  their  friendship  felt  that  it 
was  just.  The  small  parentless  grand-daugh- 
ter was  also  dear  to  Margaret — more  than  per- 
haps her  heart  knew,  because  that,  like  her- 
self, she  was  an  orphan.  But  the  creature  was 
also  a  mcrr)'  and  a  madcap  child,  and  her 
freakish  pranks,  and  playful  pervcrsenesses, 
as  she  tossed  her  head  in  untameable  glee,  and 
went  dancing  and  singing,  like  a  bird  on  the 
boughs  of  a  tree,  all  day  long,  by  some  strange 
sympathies  entirely  won  the  heart  of  her  who, 
throucrhout  all  her  own  childhood,  had  been 
familiar  with  erief,  and  a  lonely  shcdder  of 
fears.  And  thus  dnl  Margaret  love  her,  it 
might  be  said,  even  with  a  very  mother's  love. 
She  genrrally  passed  her  free  Saturday  after- 
noons at  Moorside,  and  often  slept  there  all 
night  with  little  Ann  in  her  bosom.  At 
such  times  Ludovic  was  never  from  home, 
and  many  a  Sabbath  he  walked  with  her 
to  the  kirk — all  the  family  together — and 
once  by  themselves  for  miles  along  the  moor 
— a  forenoon  of  perfect  sunshine,  which  re- 
turned upon  him  in  his  agony  on  his  dying 
day. 

No  one  said,  no  one  thought  that  Ludovic 
and  Margaret  were  lovers — nor  were  they, 
though  M'ell  worthy  indeed  of  each  other's 
love  ;  for  the  orphan's  whole  heart  was  filled 
and  satisfied  with  a  sense  of  duty,  and  all  its 
affections  were  centred  in  her  school,  where 
all  eyes  blessed  her,  and  where  she  had  heen 
placed  for  the  good  of  all  those  gladsome  crea- 
tures, by  them  who  had  rescued  her  from  the 
penury  that  kills  the  soul,  and  whose  gracious 
bounty  she  remembered  even  in  her  sleep.  In 
her  prayers  she  besecched  God  to  bless  them 
rather  than  the  wretch  on  her  knees — their 
images,  their  names,  were  ever  before  her 
eyes  and  on  her  car ;  and  next  to  that  peace  of 
mind  which  passeth  .ill  understanding,  and 
comes  from  the  footstool  of  God  into  the  hum- 
ble, lowly,  .and  contrite  heart,  was  to  that  or- 
phan, day  and  night,  w.iking  or  sleeping,  the 
bliss  of  her  gratitude.  And  thus  Ludovic  to 
her  was  a  brother,  .and  no  more ;  a  name 
Siicred  as  that  of  sister,  by  which  she  always 
called  her  .Mice,  and  was  so  called  in  return. 


I 


TALE  OF  EXPIATION. 


35 


But  to  Ludovic,  who  had  a  soul  of  fire,  Mar- 
garet was  dearer  far  than  ever  sister  was  to 
the  brother  whom,  at  the  sacrifice  of  her  own 
life,  she  mig:ht  have  rescued  from  death.  Go 
where  he  might,  a  phantom  was  at  his  side — 
a  pale  fair  face  for  ever  fixed  its  melancholy 
eyes  on  his,  as  if  foreboding  something  dismal 
even  when  they  faintly  smiled ;  and  once  he 
awoke  at  midnight,  when  all  the  house  were 
asleep,  crying,  with  shrieks,  "  0  God  of  mercy  ! 
Margaret  is  murdered  !"  Mysterious  passion 
of  Love!  that  darkens  its  own  dreams  of  de- 
light with  unimaginable  horrors !  Shall  we 
call  such  dire  bewilderment  the  superstition 
of  troubled  fantasy,  or  the  inspiration  of  the 
prophetic  soul ! 

From  what  seemingly  insignificant  sources 
— and  by  means  of  what  humble  instruments 
— may  this  life's  best  happiness  be  diffused 
over  the  households  of  industrious  men  I  Here 
was  the  orphan  daughter  of  forgotten  paupers, 
both  dead  ere  she  could  speak;  herself,  during 
all  her  melancholy  childhood,  a  pauper  even 
more  enslaved  than  ever  they  had  been — one 
of  the  most  neglected  and  unvalued  of  all 
God's  creatures — who,  had  she  then  died,  would 
have  been  buried  in  some  nettled  nook  of  the 
kirkyard,  nor  her  grave  been  watered  almost 
by  one  single  tear — suddenly  brought  out  from 
the  cold  and  cruel  shade  in  which  she  had 
been  withering  away,  by  the  interposition  of 
human  but  angelic  hands,  into  the  heaven's 
most  gracious  sunshine,  where  all  at  once  her 
beauty  blossomed  like  the  rose.  She,  who  for 
so  many  years  had  been  even  begrudgingly  fed 
on  the  poorest  and  scantiest  fare,  by  Penury 
ungrateful  for  all  her  weak  but  zealous  efforts 
to  please  by  doing  her  best,  in  sickness  and 
sorrow,  at  all  her  tasks,  in  or  out  of  doors,  and 
in  all  weathers,  however  rough  and  severe — 
was  now  raised  to  the  rank  of  a  moral,  in- 
tellectual, and  religious  being,  and  presided 
over,  tended,  and  instructed  many  little  ones, 
far,  far  happier  in  their  childhood  than  it  had 
been  her  lot  to  be,  and  all  growing  up  beneath 
her  now  untroubled  eyes,  in  innocence,  love, 
and  joy  inspired  into  their  hearts  by  her,  their 
young  and  happy  benefactress.  Not  a  human 
dwelling  in  all  the  parish,  that  had  not  reason 
to  be  thankful  to  Margaret  Burnside.  She 
taught  them  to  be  pleasant  in  their  manners, 
neat  in  their  persons,  rational  in  their  minds, 
pure  in  their  hearts,  and  industrious  in  all 
their  habits.  Rudeness,  coarseness,  sullenness, 
all  angry  fits,  and  all  idle  dispositions — the  be- 
setting vices  and  sins  of  the  children  of  the 
poor,  whose  home-education  is  often  so  miser- 
ably, and  almost  necessarily  neglected — did 
this  sweet  Teacher,  by  the  divine  influence  of 
meekness  never  rufiled,  and  tenderness  never 
troubled,  in  a  few  months  subdue  and  over- 
come— till  her  school-room,  every  day  in  the 
week,  was,  in  its  cheerfulness,  sacred  as  a 
Sabbath,  and  murmured  from  morn  till  eve 
with  the  hum  of  perpetual  happiness.  The 
effects  were  soon  felt  in  every  house.  All 
Qoors  were  tidier,  and  order  and  regularity 
enlivened  every  hearth.  It  was  the  pride  of 
her  scholars  to  get  their  own  little  gardens 
behind  their  parents'  huts  to  bloom  like  that 
of  the  Brae — and.  in  imitation  of  that  flowery 


porch,  to  train  up  the  pretty  creepers  on  the 
wall.  In  the  kirkyard,  a  smiling  group  every 
Sabbath  forenoon  waited  for  her  at  the  gate — 
and  walked,  with  her  at  their  head,  into  the 
House  of  God — a  beautiful  procession  to  all 
their  parents' ej'es — one  by  one  dropping  away 
into  their  own  seats,  as  the  band  moved  along 
the  little  lobby-,  and  the  minister  sitting  in  the 
pulpit  all  the  while,  looked  solemnly  down 
upon  the  fair  flock — the  shepherd  of  their 
souls! 

It  was  Sabbath,  but  Margaret  Burnside  was 
not  in  the  kirk.  The  congregation  had  risen 
to  join  in  prayer,  when  the  great  door  was 
thrown  open,  and  a  woman,  apparelled  as  for 
the  house  of  worship,  but  wild  and  ghastly  in 
her  face  and  eyes  as  a  maniac  hunted  by  evil 
spirits,  burst  in  upon  the  service,  and,  with 
uplifted  hands,  beseeched  the  man  of  God  to 
forgive  her  irreverent  entrance,  for  that  the 
foulest  and  most  unnatural  murder  had  been 
done,  and  that  her  own  eyes  had  seen  the  corpse 
of  Margaret  Burnside  lying  on  the  moor  in  a 
pool  of  blood!  The  congregation  gave  one 
groan,  and  then  an  outcry  as  if  the  roof  of  the 
kirk  had  been  toppling  over  their  heads.  All 
cheeks  waxed  white,  women  fainted,  and  the 
firmest  heart  quaked  with  terror  and  pity,  as 
once  and  again  the  affrighted  witness,  in  the 
same  words,  described  the  horrid  spectacle, 
and  then  rushed  out  into  the  open  air,  followed 
by  hundreds,  who  for  some  minutes  had  been 
palsy-stricken  ;  and  now  the  kirkyard  was  all 
in  a  tumult  round  the  body  of  her  who  lay^in 
a  swoon.  In  the  midst  of  that  dreadful  ferment, 
there  were  voices  crying  aloud  that  the  poor 
woman  was  mad,  and  that  such  horror  could 
not  be  beneath  the  sun ;  for  such  a  perpetra- 
tion on  the  Sabbath-day,  and  first  heard  of 
just  as  the  prayers  of  his  people  were  about  to 
ascend  to  the  Father  of  all  mercies,  shocked 
belief,  and  doubt  struggled  with  despair  as  in 
the  helpless  shudderings  of  some  dream  of 
blood.  The  crowd  were  at  last  prevailed  on 
by  their  pastor  to  disperse,  and  sit  down  on  the 
tombstones,  and  water  being  sprinkled  over 
the  face  of  her  who  still  lay  in  that  mortal 
swoon,  and  the  air  suffered  to  circulate  freely 
round  her,  she  again  opened  her  glassy  eyes, 
and  raising  herself  on  her  elbow,  stared  on  the 
multitude,  all  gathered  there  so  wan  and  silent, 
and  shrieked  out,  "The  Day  of  Judgment! 
The  Day  of  Judgment!" 

The  aged  minister  raised  her  on  her  feet, 
and  led  her  to  a  grave,  on  which  she  sat  down, 
and  hid  her  face  on  his  knees.  "O  that  I 
should  have  livea  lO  see  the  day — but  dreadful 
are  the  decrees  of  the  Most  High — and  she 
whom  we  all  loved  has  been  cruelly  mur- 
dered! Carry  me  with  you,  people,  and  I 
will  show  you  where  lies  her  corpse." 

"  Where — where  is  Ludovic  Adamson  ?" 
cried  a  hoarse  voice  which  none  there  had 
ever  heard  before;  and  all  eyes  were  turned 
in  one  direction  ;  but  none  knew  who  had 
spoken,  and  all  again  was  hush.  Then  all  at 
once  a  hundred  voices  repeated  the  same 
words,  "Where — where  is  Ludovic  Adam- 
son  ■?"  and  there  was  no  reply.  Then,  indeed, 
was  the  kirkyard  in  an  angry  and  a  wrathful 
ferment,  and  men  looked  far  into  each  other's 


RECREATIONS   OF   CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


eyes  for  confirmation  of  their  suspicions.  And 
there  was  whispering  about  things,  that,  though 
in  themselves  light  as  air,  seemed  now  charged 
with  hideous  import;  and  then  arose  sacred 
appeals  to  Heaven's  eternal  justice,  horridly 
mingled  with  oaths  and  curses ;  and  all  the 
crowd,  springing  to  their  feet,  pronounced, 
"  that  no  other  but  he  could  be  the  murderer." 
It  was  remembered  now,  that  for  months 
past  Margaret  Burnside  had  often  looked  me- 
lancholy— that  her  visits  had  been  less  fre- 
quent to  Moorside ;  and  one  person  in  the 
crowd  said,  that  a  few  weeks  ago  she  had 
come  upon  them  suddenly  in  a  retired  place, 
when  Margaret  was  weeping  bitterly,  and  Lu- 
dovic  tossing  his  arms,  seemingly  in  wrath 
and  distraction.  All  agreed  that  of  late  he 
had  led  a  disturbed  and  reckless  life — and 
that  something  dark  and  suspicious  had  hung 
about  him,  wherever  he  went,  as  if  he  were 
haunted  by  an  evil  conscience.  But  did  not 
strange  men  sometimes  pass  through  the  Moor 
— squalid  mendicants,  robber-like,  from  the  far- 
off  city — one  by  one,  yet  seemingly  belonging 
to  the  same  gang — with  bludgeons  in  their 
hands — half-naked,  and  often  drunken  in  their 
hunger,  as  at  the  doors  of  lonesome  houses 
they  demanded  alms;  or  more  like  foot-pads 
than  beggars,  with  stern  gestures,  rising  up 
from  the  ditches  on  the  way-side,  stopped  the 
frightened  Avomen  and  children  going  upon 
errands,  and  thanklessly  received  pence  from 
the  poor?  One  of  them  must  have  been  the 
murderer!  But  then,  again,  the  whole  tide  of 
suspicion  would  set  in  upon  Ludovic — her 
lover;  for  the  darker  and  more  dreadful  the 
guilt,  the  more  welcome  is  it  to  the  fears  of 
the  imagination  when  its  waking  dreams  are 
floating  in  blood. 

A  tall  figure  came  forward  from  the  porch, 
and  all  was  silence  when  the  congregation 
beheld  the  Father  of  the  suspected  criminal. 
He  stood  still  as  a  tree  in  a  calm  day — trunk, 
limbs,  moved  not — and  his  grav  head  was  un- 
covered. He  then  stretched  out  his  arm,  not 
in  an  imploring,  but  in  a  commandmg  atti- 
tude, and  essayed  to  speak;  but  his  white  lips 
quivered,  and  his  tnngue  refused  its  othce.  At 
last,  almost  fiercely,  he  uttered,  "  Who  dares 
denounce  my  son?"  and  like  the  growling 
thunder,  the  crowd  cried,  "All — all — he  is  the 
murderer!"  Some  said  that  the  old  man 
smiled;  but  it  could  have  been  but  a  convul- 
sion of  the  features — outraged  nature's  wrung- 
out  and  writhing  expression  of  disdain,  to 
show  how  a  father's  love  brooks  the  cruelty 
of  foolish  falsehood  and  injustice. 

Men,  women,  and  children — all  whom  grief 
and  horror  had  not  made  helpless — moved 
away  towards  the  Moor— the  woman  who  had 
seen  the  sight  leading  the  wav;  for  now  her 
whole  strength  had  returned  to  her,  and  she 
was  drawn  and  driven  by  an  irresistible  pas- 
sion to  look  again  at  what  had  almost  de- 
stroyed her  judgment.  Now  they  were  miles 
from  the  kirk,  and  over  some  brushwood,  at 
the  edge  of  a  morass  some  distance  from  the 
common  footpath,  crows  were  seen  diving  and 
careering  in  the  air,  and  a  raven  flapping  sud- 
denly out  of  the  covert,  sailed  awav  with  a 


savage  croak  along  a  range  of  cliffs.  The 
whole  multitude  stood  stock-still  at  that  car- 
rion-sound. The  guide  said  shudderingly,  in 
a  low  hurried  voice,  "See,  see — that  is  her 
mantle" — and  there  indeed  Margaret  lay,  all 
in  a  heap,  maimed,  mangled,  murdered,  with  , 
a  hundred  gashes.  The  corpse  seemed  as  if 
it  had  been  baked  in  frost,  and  was  embedded 
in  coagulated  blood.  Shreds  and  patches  of 
her  dress,  torn  away  from  her  bosom,  be- 
strewed the  bushes — for  many  yards  round 
about,  there  had  been  the  trampling  of  feel, 
and  a  long  lock  of  hair  that  had  been  torn 
from  her  temples,  with  the  dews  yet  unmelted 
on  it,  was  lying  upon  a  plant  of  broom,  a  little 
way  from  the  corpse.  The  first  to  lilt  the 
body  from  the  horrid  bed  was  Gilbert  Adam- 
son.  He  had  been  long  familiar  with  death 
in  all  its  ghastliness.  and  all  had  now  looked 
to  hiiii — forgetting  for  the  moment  that  he  was 
the  father  of  the  murderer — to  perform  the 
task  from  which  Ihcy  recoiled  in  horror. 
Resting  on  one  knee,  he  placed  the  corpse  on 
the  other — and  who  coulil  have  believed,  that 
even  the  most  violent  and  cruel  death  could 
have  wrought  such  a  change  on  a  face  once 
so  beautiful!  All  was  distortion — and  terri- 
ble it  was  to  see  the  dim  glazed  eyes,  fixedly 
open,  and  the  orbs  insensible  to  the  strong  sun 
that  smote  her  face  while  as  snow  amimg  the 
streaks  as  if  left  by  bloody  fingers  !  Her  throat 
was  all  discoloured — and  a  <iilk  handkerchief 
twisted  into  a  cord,  that  had  manifestly  been 
used  in  the  murder,  was  of  a  redder  hue  than 
when  it  had  veiled  her  breast.  No  one  knows 
what  horror  his  eyes  are  able  to  look  on,  (ill 
they  are  tried.  A  circle  of  stupified  gazers 
was  drawn  by  a  horrid  fascination  closer  and 
closer  round  the  corpse — and  women  stood 
there  holding  children  by  the  hands,  and  faint- 
ed not,  but  observed  the  sight,  and  shuddered 
without  shrieking,  and  stood  there  all  dumb  as 
ghosts.  But  the  body  was  now  borne  along 
by  many  hands — at  first  none  knew  in  what 
direction,  till  many  voices  muttered.  "To  Moor- 
side— to  Moorside" — and  in  an  hour  it  was 
laid  on  the  bed  in  which  Margaret  Burnside 
had  so  often  slept  with  her  beloved  little  Ann 
in  her  bosom. 

The  hand  of  some  one  had  thrown  a  cloth 
over  the  corpse.  The  room  was  filled  with  peo- 
ple— but  all  their  power  and  capacity  of  horror 
had  been  exhausted — and  the  silence  was  now 
almost  like  that  which  attends  a  natural  death, 
when  all  the  neighbours  are  assembled  for  the 
funeral.  Alice,  with  little  Ann  beside  her, 
kneeled  at  the  bed,  nor  feared  to  lean  her  head 
close  to  the  covered  corpse — sobbing  out  sylla- 
bles that  showed  how  passi<inalely  she  prayed 
— and  that  she  and  her  little  niece — and,  oh  ! 
for  that  unhappy  father — were  delivering  them- 
selves up  into  the  hands  of  God.  The  father 
knelt  not — neither  did  he  sit  down — nor  move 
— nor  groan — but  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  bed, 
with  arms  folded  almost  sternly — and  wiih 
eyes  fixed  on  the  sheet,  in  which  there  seemed 
to  be  neither  ruth  nor  dread — but  only  an  aus- 
tere composure,  which  were  it  indeed  but  re- 
sisrnation  to  that  dismal  decree  of  Providencr, 
had  been  most  sublime — but  who  can  see  into 


TALE   OF  EXPIATION. 


87 


the  heart  of  a  man  either  righteous  or  wicked, 
and  know  what  may  be  passing  there,  breath- 
ed from  the  gales  of  heaven  or  of  hell ! 

8oon  as  the  body  had  been  found,  shepherds 
and  herdsmen,  fleet  of  foot  as  the  deer,  had  set 
off"  to  scour  the  country  far  and  wide,  hill  and 
glen,  mountain  and  morass,  moor  and  wood, 
for  the  murderer.  If  he  be  on  the  face  of  the 
earth,  and  not  self-plunged  in  despairing  sui- 
cide into  some  quagmire,  he  will  be  found — 
for  all  the  population  of  manj'^  districts  are 
now  afoot,  and  precipices  are  clomb  till  now 
brushed  but  by  the  falcons.  A  figure,  like  that 
of  a  man,  is  seen  by  some  of  the  hunters  from 
a  hill-top,  lying  among  the  stones  by  the  side 
of  a  solitary  loch.  They  separate,  and  descend 
upon  him,  and  then  gathering  in,  they  behold 
the  man  whom  they  seek — Ludovic  Adamson, 
the  murderer. 

His  face  is  pale  and  hag£;ard — yet  flushed 
as  if  by  a  fever  centered  in  his  heart.  That 
is  no  dress  for  the  Sabbath-day — soiled  and 
savage-looking — and  giving  to  the  eyes  that 
search  an  assurance  of  guilt.  He  starts  to  his 
feel,  as  they  think,  like  some  wild  beast  sur- 
prised in  his  lair,  and  gathering  itself  up  to 
fight  or  fly.  But — strange  enormity — a  Bible 
is  in  his  hand!  And  the  shepherd  who  first 
seized  him,  taking  the  book  out  of  his  grasp, 
looks  into  the  page,  and  reads,  "  Whoever  shed- 
deih  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be 
surely  shed."  On  a  leaf  is  written,  in  her  own 
well-known  hand,  "The  gift  of  Margaret  Burn- 
side  !"  Not  a  word  is  said  by  his  captors — 
they  offer  no  needless  violence — no  indignities 
— but  answer  all  inquiries  of  surprise  and  as- 
tonishment (Oh  !  can  one  so  young  be  so  hard- 
ened in  wickedness  !)  by  a  stern  silence,  and 
upbraiding  eyes,  that  like  daggers  must  stab 
his  heart.  At  last  he  walks  doggedly  and  sul- 
lenly along,  and  refuses  to  speak — yet  his 
tread  is  firm — there  is  no  want  of  composure 
in  his  face — now  that  the  first  passion  of  fear 
or  anger  has  left  it ;  and  now  that  they  have 
the  murderer  in  their  clutch,  some  begin  al- 
most to  pity  him,  and  others  to  believe,  or  at 
least  to  hope,  that  he  may  be  innocent.  As  yet 
they  have  said  not  a  word  of  the  crime  of 
which  they  accuse  him  ;  but  let  him  try  to  mas- 
ter the  expression  of  his  voice  and  his  eyes  as 
he  inaj-,  guilt  is  in  those  stealthy  glances — 
guilt  is  in  those  reckless  tones.  And  whj'  does 
he  seek  to  hide  his  right  hand  in  his  bosom  1 
And  whatever  he  may  afl^ect  to  say — they  ask 
him  not — most  certainly  that  stain  on  his  shirt- 
collar  is  blood.  But  now  they  are  at  Moor- 
side. 

There  is  still  a  great  crowd  all  round  about 
the  house — in  the  garden — and  at  the  door — and 
a  troubled  cry  announces  that  the  criminal  has 
been  taken,  and  is  close  at  hand.  His  father 
meets  him  at  the  gate  ;  and,  kneeling  down, 
holds  up  his  clasped  hands,  and  says,  "  My 
son,  if  thou  art  guilty,  confess,  and  die."  The 
criminal  angrily  waves  his  father  aside,  and 
walks  towards  the  door.  "Fools!  fools!  what 
mean  ye  by  this  T  What  crime  has  been  com- 
mitted 1  And  how  dare  ye  to  think  me  the 
criminal?  Am  I  like  a  murderer?" — "We 
never  spoke  to  him  of  the  murder — we  never 
spoke  to  him  of  the  murder !"  cried  one  of  the 


men  who  now  held  him  by  the  arm ;  and  all 

assembled  then  exclaimed,  "Guilty,  guilty 

that  one  word  will  hang  him !  Oh,  pity,  pity,  for 
his  father  and  poor  sister — this  will  break  their 
hearts !"  Appalled,  3-et  firm  of  foot,  the  pri- 
soner forced  his  way  into  the  house,  and  turn- 
ing, in  his  confusion,  into  the  chamber  on  the 
left,  there  he  beheld  the  corpse  of  the  murdered 
on  the  bed — for  the  sheet  had  been  removed — 
as  yet  not  laid  out,  and  disfigured  and  deform- 
ed just  as  she  had  been  found  on  the  moor,  in 
the  same  misshapen  heap  of  death!  One  long 
insane  glare — one  shriek,  as  if  all  his  heart- 
strings at  once  had  burst — and  then  down  fell 
the  strong  man  on  the  floor  like  lead.  One 
trial  was  past  which  no  human  hardihood 
could  endure — another,  and  yet  another  awaits 
him  ;  but  them  he  will  bear  as  the  guilty  brave 
have  ofien  borne  them,  and  the  most  searching 
eye  shall  not  see  him  quail  at  the  bar  or  on 
the  scaffold. 

They  lifted  the  stricken  wretch  from  the 
floor,  placed  him  in  a  chair,  and  held  him  up- 
right, till  he  should  revive  from  the  fit.  And 
he  soon  did  revive  ;  for  health  flowed  in  ail 
his  veins,  and  he  had  the  strength  of  a  giant. 
But  when  his  senses  returned,  there  was  none 
to  pity  him ;  for  the  shock  had  given  an  ex- 
pression of  guilty  horror  to  all  his  looks,  and, 
like  a  man  walking  in  his  sleep  under  the 
temptation  of  some  dreadful  dream,  he  moved 
with  fixed  eyes  towards  the  bed,  and  looking  at 
the  corpse,  gobbled  in  hideous  laughter,  and 
then  wept  and  tore  his  hair  like  a  distracted 
woman  or  child.  Then  he  stooped  down  as  he 
would  kiss  the  face,  but  staggered  back,  and, 
covering  his  eyes  with  his  hands,  uttered  such 
a  groan  as  is  sometimes  heard  rending  the 
sinner's  breast  when  the  avenging  Furies  are 
upon  him  in  his  dreams.  All  who  heard  it 
felt  that  he  was  guilty  ;  and  there  was  a  fierce 
cry  through  the  room  of  "  Make  him  touch  the 
body,  and  if  he  be  the  murderer,  it  will  bleed!" 
— "Fear  not,  Ludovic,  to  touch  it,  my  boy," 
said  his  father;  "bleed  afresh  it  will  not,  for 
thou  art  innocent:  and  savage  though  now 
they  be  who  once  were  proud  to  be  thy  friends, 
even  they  will  believe  thee  guiltless  when  the 
corpse  refuses  to  bear  witness  against  thee, 
and  not  a  drop  leaves  its  quiet  heart!"  But 
his  son  spake  not  a  word,  nor  did  he  seem  to 
know  that  his  father  had  spoken;  but  he  suf- 
fered himself  to  be  led  passively  towards  the 
bed.  One  of  the  bystanders  took  his  hand  and 
placed  it  on  the  naked  breast,  when  out  of  the 
corners  of  the  teeth-clenched  mouth,  and  out 
of  the  swollen  nostrils,  two  or  three  blood-drops 
visibly  oozed;  and  a  sort  of  shrieking  shout 
declared  the  sacred  faith  of  all  the  crowd  iu 
the  dreadful  ordeal.  "  What  body  is  this  1  'tis 
all  over  blood  !"  said  the  prisoner,  looking  with 
an  idiot  vacancy  on  the  faces  that  surrounded 
him.  But  now  the  sheriff"  of  the  county  en- 
tered the  room,  along  with  some  officers  of 
justice,  and  he  was  spared  any  further  shocks 
from  that  old  saving  superstition.  His  wrists 
soon  after  were  manacled.  These  were  all  the 
words  he  had  uttered  since  he  recovered  from 
the  fit ;  and  he  seemed  now  in  a  state  of 
stupor. 

Ludovic  Adamson,  after  examination  of  wit 
D 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


nesses  who  crowded  against  him  from  many 
unexpected  quarters,  was  committed  that  very 
Sabbath  night  to  prison  on  a  charge  of  murder. 
On  the  Tuesday  following,  the  remains  of  Mar- 
garet Burnside  were  interred.  All  the  parish 
were  at  the  funeral.  In  Scotland  it  is  not  cus- 
tomary for  females  to  join  in  the  last  simple 
ceremonies  of  death.  But  in  this  case  they 
did;  and  all  her  scholars,  in  the  same  white 
dresses  in  which  they  used  to  walk  with  her 
at  their  head  into  the  kirk  on  Sabbaths,  followed 
the  bier.  Alice  and  little  Ann  were  there, 
nearest  the  coffin,  and  the  father  of  him  who 
had  wrought  all  this  wo  was  one  of  its  sup- 
porters. The  head  of  the  murdered  girl  rest- 
ed, it  might  be  said,  on  his  shoulder— but  none 
can  know  the  strength  which  God  gives  to  his 
servants — and  all  present  felt  for  him,  as  he 
walked  steadily  under  that  dismal  burden,  a 
pity,  and  even  an  affection,  which  they  had 
been  unable  to  yield  to  him  ere  he  had  been 
so  sorely  tried.  The  Ladies  from  the  Castle 
were  among  the  other  mourners,  and  stood  by 
the  open  grave.  A  sunnier  day  had  never 
shone  from  heaven,  and  that  very  grave  itself 
partook  of  the  brightness,  as  the  coflin — with 
the  gilt  letters,  "  Margaret  Burnside,  Aged  18" 
— was  let  down,  and  in  the  darkness  below 
disappeared.  No  flowers  were  sprinkled  there 
— nor  afterwards  planted  itn  the  turf — vain 
offerings  of  unavailing  sorrow  !  But  in  that 
nook — beside  the  bodies  of  her  poor  parents — 
she  was  left  for  the  grass  to  grow  over  her,  as 
over  the  other  humble  dead  ;  and  nothing  but 
the  very  simplest  headstone  was  placed  there, 
with  a  sentence  from  Scripture  below  the  name. 
There  was  less  weeping,  less  sobbing,  than  at 
many  other  funerals ;  for  as  sure  as  Mercy 
ruled  the  skies,  all  believed  that  she  was  there 
— all  knew  it,  just  as  if  the  gates  of  heaven 
had  opened  and  showed  her  a  white-robed 
spirit  at  the  right  hand  of  the  throne.  And 
why  should  any  rueful  lamentation  have  been 
wailed  over  the  senseless  dust !  But  on  the 
way  home  over  the  hills,  and  in  the  hush  of 
evening  beside  their  hearths,  and  in  the  still- 
ness of  night  on  their  beds — all — young  and 
old — all  did  nothing  but  weep  ! 

For  weeks — such  was  the  pity,  grief,  and 
awe  inspired  by  this  portentous  crime  and  la- 
mentable calamity,  that  all  the  domestic  on- 
goings in  all  the  houses  far  and  wide,  were 
melancholy  and  mournful,  as  if  the  country 
had  been  fearing  a  visitation  of  the  plague. 
Sin,  it  was  felt,  had  br6ught  not  only  sorrow 
on  the  parish,  but  shame  that  ages  would  not 
wipe  away;  and  strangers,  as  they  travelled 
through  the  moor,  would  point  the  place  where 
the  foulest  murder  had  been  committed  in  all 
the  annals  of  crime.  As  for  the  family  at 
Moorside,  the  daughter  had  their  boundless 
compassion,  though  no  eye  had  seen  her  since 
the  funeral;  but  people,  in  speaking  of  the 
father,  would  still  shake  their  heads,  and  put 
their  fingers  to  their  lips,  and  sav  to  one  an- 
other in  whispers,  that  Gilbert  Adamson  had 
once  been  a  bold,  bad  man — that  his  religion, 
.n  spile  of  all  his  repulsive  austerity,  wore  not 
the  aspect  of  truth— and  that,  had' he  held  a 
stricter  and  a  stronger  hand  on  the  errors  of 
nis  misguided  son,  this  foul  deed  had  not  been 


perpetrated,  nor  that  wretched  sinner's  soul 
given  to  perdition.  Yet  others  had  gentler  and 
humaner  thoughts.  They  remembered  him 
walking  along  God-supported  beneath  the  bier 
— and  at  the  mouth  of  the  grave — and  feared 
to  look  on  that  head — formerly  grizzled,  but 
now  quite  gray — when  on  the  very  first  Sab- 
bath after  the  murder  he  took  his  place  in  the 
elder's  seat,  and  was  able  to  stand  np,  along 
with  the  rest  of  the  congregation,  when  the 
minister  prayed  for  peace  to  his  soul,  and 
hoped  for  the  deliverance  out  of  jeopardy  of 
him  now  lying  in  bonds.  A  low  Amen  went 
all  round  the  kirk  at  these  words;  for  the  most 
hopeless  called  to  mind  that  ma:cim  of  law, 
equity,  and  justice — that  ever>'  man  under  ac- 
cusation of  crinje  should  be  held  innocent  till 
he  is  proved  to  be  guilty.  Nay,  a  human  tribu- 
nal might  condemn  him,  and  yet  might  he  stand 
acquuled  before  the  tribunal  of  God. 

There  were  various  accounts  of  the  beha- 
viour of  the  prisoner.  Some  said  that  he  was 
desperately  hardened — others,  sunk  in  sullen 
apathy  and  indilference — and  one  or  two  per- 
sons belonging  lo  the  parish  who  had  seen 
him,  declared  that  he  seemed  to  care  not  for 
himself,  but  to  be  plunged  in  profound  melan- 
choly for  the  fate  of  Margaret  Burnside,  whose 
name  he  involuntarily  mentioned,  and  then 
bowed  his  head  on  his  knees  and  wept.  His 
guilt  he  neitlier  admitted  at  that  inter^'iew,  nor 
denied;  but  he  conf<*ssed  that  some  circum- 
stances bore  hard  against  him,  and  that  he  was 
prepared  for  the  event  of  his  trials-condemna- 
tion and  death.  "  But  if  you  are  not  guilty, 
Ludovic,  trhn  ran  lit  the  viunlfrcr '  Not  the 
slightest  shade  of  suspicion  has  fallen  on  any 
other  person — and  did  not,  alas  !  the  body  bleed 

when" The    unhappy   wretch    sprang   up 

from  the  bed,  it  was  said,  at  these  words,  and 
hurried  like  a  madman  back  and  forward  along 
the  stone  floor  of  his  ceil.  "Yea — yea!"  ai 
last  he  crieil,  "the  mouth  and  nostrils  of  my 
Margaret  did  indeed  bleed  when  th'^y  pressed 
down  my  hand  on  her  cold  bosom.  It  is  God's 
truth  !"  "  God's  truth  ?" — "  Yes — (iod's  truth. 
I  saw  first  one  drop,  and  then  another,  trickle 
towards  me — and  I  prayed  to  our  Saviour  to 
wipe  them  off  before  other  eyes  might  behold 
the  dreadful  witnesses  against  me ;  but  at  that 
hour  Heaven  was  most  unmerciful — for  those 
two  small  drop'^ — as  all  of  you  saw — soon  be- 
came a  very  stream — and  all  her  face,  neck, 
and  brea,*;t — you  saw  it  as  well  as  I  miserable 
— were  at  last  drenched  in  blood.  Then  I  may 
have  confessed  that  I  was  guilty— <lid  1,  or  did 
I  not.  confess  it!  Tell  me — f>r  I  remember 
nothing  distinctly  ; — but  if  I  did — the  judgment 
of  offended  Heaven,  then  punishing  mo  for  my 
sins,  had  made  me  worse  than  mad — and  so 
had  all  your  abhorrent  eyes;  and,  men.  if  I 
did  confess,  it  was  the  cruelty  of  God  that  drove 
me  to  it — and  your  cruelty — which  was  great; 
for  no  pity  had  any  one  for  me  that  day,  though 
Margaret  Burnsi(ie  l.iy  before  me  a  murdered 
corpse — and  a  hoarse  whisper  came  to  my  ear 
urging  me  to  confess — 1  well  believe  from  no 
human  lips,  but  from  the  Father  of  Lies,  who, 
at  that  hour,  was  suffered  to  leave  the  pit  to 
ensnare  my  soul."  Such  was  said  to  have 
been  the  main  sense  of  what  he  utfred  in  iho 


TALE  OF  EXPIATION. 


89 


presence  of  two  or  three  who  had  formerly 
been  among  his  most  intimate  friends,  and  who 
knew  not,  on  leaving  his  cell  and  coming  into 
the  open  air,  whether  to  think  him  innocent  or 
guilty.  As  long  as  they  thought  they  saw  his 
eyes  regarding  them,  and  that  they  heard  his 
voice  speaking,  they  believed  him  innocent ; 
but  when  the  expression  of  the  tone  of  his 
voice,  and  of  the  look  of  his  eyes — which  they 
had  felt  belonged  to  innocence — died  away 
from  their  memory — then  arose  against  him 
the  strong,  strange,  circumstantial  evidence, 
which,  wisely  or  unwisel}' — law)-ers  and  judges 
have  said  cannot  lie — and  then,  in  their  hearts, 
one  and  all  of  them  pronounced  him  guilty. 

But  had  not  his  father  often  visited  the  pris- 
oner's cell?  Once — and  once  only;  for  in 
obedience  to  his  son's  passionate  prayer,  be- 
seeching him — if  there  were  any  mercy  left 
either  on  earth  or  in  heaven — never  more  to 
enter  that  dungeon,  the  miserable  parent  had 
not  again  entered  the  prison;  but  he  had  been 
seen  one  morning  at  dawn,  by  one  who  knew 
his  person,  walking  round  and  round  the  walls, 
Staring  up  at  the  black  building  in  distraction, 
especially  at  one  small  grated  window  in  the 
north  tower — and  it  is  most  probable  that  he 
had  been  pacing  his  rounds  there  during  all 
the  night.  Nobody  could  conjecture,  however 
dimly,  what  was  the  meaning  of  his  banish- 
ment from  his  son's  cell.  Gilbert  Adamson, 
so  stern  to  others,  even  to  his  own  only  daugh- 
ter, had  been  always  but  too  indulgent  to  his 
Ludovic — and  had  that  lost  wretch's  guilt,  so 
exceeding  great,  changed  his  heart  into  stone, 
and  made  the  sight  of  his  old  father's  gray  hairs 
hateful  to  his  eyes  I  But  then  the  jailer,  who 
had  heard  him  imploring — beseeching — com- 
manding his  father  to  remain  till  after  the  trial 
at  Moorside,  said,  that  all  the  while  the  prison- 
er sobbed  and  wept  like  a  child ;  and  that  when 
he  unlocked  the  iloor  of  the  cell,  to  let  the  old 
man  out,  it  was  a  hard  thing  to  tear  away  the 
arms  and  hands  of  Ludovic  from  his  knees, 
while  the  father  sat  like  a  stone  image  on  the 
bed,  and  kept  his  tearless  eyes  fixed  sternly 
upon  the  wall,  as  if  not  a  soul  had  been  pre- 
sent, and  he  himself  had  been  a  criminal  con- 
demned next  day  to  die. 

The  father  had  obeyed,  riUs:iont'ly,  that  miser- 
able injunction,  and  from  religion  it  seemed 
he  had  found  comfort.  For  Sabbath  after  Sab- 
bath he  was  at  the  kirk — he  stood,  as  he  had 
been  wont  to  do  for  years,  at  the  poor's  plate, 
and  returned  grave  salutations  to  those  who 
dropt  their  mile  into  the  small  sacred  treasury 
—his  eyes  calml\',  and  even  critically,  regard- 
ed the  pastor  during  prayer  and  sermon — and 
his  deep  bass  voice  was  heard,  as  usual, 
through  all  the  house  of  God  in  the  Psalms. 
On  week-days,  he  was  seen  by  passers-by  to 
drive  his  flocks  afield,  and  to  overlook  his 
sheep  on  the  hill-pastures,  or  in  the  pen-fold ; 
and  as  it  was  still  spring,  and  seed-time  had 
been  late  this  season,  he  was  observed  holding 
ihe  plough,  as  of  yore;  nor  had  his  skill  de- 
serted him — for  the  furrows  were  as  straight 
as  if  drawn  by  a  rule  on  paper — and  soon 
oright  and  beautiful  was  the  braird  on  all  the 
low  lands  of  his  farm.  The  Comforter  was 
with  him,  and,  sorely  as  he  had  been  tried,  his 


heart  was  not  yet  wholly  broken  ;  and  it  was 
believed  that,  for  years,  he  might  outlive  the 
blow  that  at  first  had  seemed  more  than  a 
mortal  man  might  bear  and  be  !  Yet  that  his 
wo,  though  hidden,  was  dismal,  all  erelong 
knew,  from  certain  tokens  that  intrenched  his 
face — cheeks  shrunk  and  fallen — brow  not  so 
much  furrowed  as  scarred,  eyes  quenched, 
hair  thinner  and  thinner  far,  as  if  he  himself 
had  torn  it  away  in  handfuls  during  the  soli- 
tude of  midnight — ai^d  now  absolutely  as  white 
as  snow;  and  over  the  whole  man  an  inde- 
scribable ancientness  far  beyond  his  years — 
though  they  were  many,  and  most  of  them  had 
been  passed  in  torrid  climes — all  showed  how 
grief  has  its  agonies  as  destructive  as  those  of 
guilt,  and  those  the  most  wasting  when  they 
work  in  the  heart  and  in  the  brain,  unrelieved 
by  the  shedding  of  one  single  tear — when  the 
very  soul  turns  dry  as  dust,  and  life  is  im- 
prisoned, rather  than  mingled,  in  the  decaying 
— the  mouldering  body  ! 

The  Day  of  Trial  came,  and  all  labour  was 
suspended  in  the  parish,  as  if  it  had  been  a 
mourning  fast.  Hundreds  of  people  from  this 
remote  district  poured  into  the  circuit-town, 
and  besieged  the  court-house.  Horsemen  were 
in  readiness,  soon  as  the  verdict  should  be  re- 
turned, to  carry  the  intelligence — of  life  or 
death — to  all  those  glens.  A  few  words  will 
suffice  to  tell  the  trial,  the  nature  of  the  evi- 
dence, and  its  issue.  The  prisoner,  who  stood 
at  the  bar  in  black,  appeared — though  miser- 
ably changed  from  a  man  of  great  muscular 
power  and  activity,  a  magnificent  man,  into  a 
tall  thin  shadow — perfectly  unappalled;  but 
in  a  face  so  white,  and  wasted,  and  wo-begone, 
the  most  profound  physiognomist  could  read 
not  one  faintest  symptom  either  of  hope  or 
fear,  trembling  or  trust,  guilt  or  innocence. 
He  hardly  seemed  to  belong  to  this  world,  and 
stood  fearfully  and  ghastily  conspicuous  be- 
tween the  officers  of  justice,  above  all  the 
crowd  that  devoured  him  with  their  eyes,  all 
leaning  towards  the  bar  to  catch  the  first  sound 
of  his  voice,  when  to  the  indictment  he  should 
plead  "Not  Guilty."  These  words  he  did  ut- 
ter, in  a  hollow  voice  altogether  passionless, 
and  then  was  suffered  to  sit  down,  which  he 
did  in  a  manner  destitute  of  all  emotion.  Dur- 
ing all  the  many  long  hours  of  his  trial,  he 
never  moved  head,  limbs,  or  body,  except  once, 
when  he  drank  some  water,  which  he  had  not 
asked  for,  but  which  was  given  to  him  by  a 
friend.  The  evidence  was  entirely  circum- 
stantial, and  consisted  of  a  few  damning  facts, 
and  of  many  of  the  very  slightest  sort,  which, 
taken  singly,  seemed  to  mean  nothing,  but 
which,  wheii  considered  all  together,  seemed 
to  mean  something  against  him— how  much 
or  how  little,  there  were  among  the  agitated 
audience  many  differing  opinions.  But  slight 
as  they  were,  either  singly  or  together,  they 
told  fearfully  against  the  prisoner,  when  coi. 
nected  with  the  fatal  few  which  no  ingenuity 
could  ever  explain  away;  and  though  inge 
nuity  did  all  it  could  do,  -when  wielded  by 
eloquence  of  the  highest  order— and  as  the 
prisoner's  counsel  sat  down,  there  went  a 
rustle  and  a  buzz  through  the  court,  and  a  com- 
munication of  looks  and  whispers,  that  seemed 


40 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


to  denote  that  there  were  hopes  of  his  acquit- 
tal— yet,  if  such  hopes  there  were,  they  were 
deadened  by  the  recollection  of  the  calm,  clear, 
logical  address  to  the  jury  by  the  counsel  for 
the  crown,  and  destroyed  by  the  judge's  charge, 
which  amounted  almost  to  demonstration  of 
guilt,  and  concluded  with  a  confession  due  to 
his  oath  and  conscience,  tliat  he  saw  not  how 
the  jury  could  do  their  duty  to  their  Creator 
and  their  fellow-creatures,  but  by  returning  one 
verdict.  They  retired  to  consider  it;  and,  dur- 
ing a  deathlike  silence,  all  eyes  were  bent  on 
a  deatlilike  image. 

It  had  appeared  in  evidence,  that  the  murder 
had  been  committed,  at  least  all  the  gashes  in- 
flicted— for  there  were  also  finger-marks  of 
strangulation — with  a  bill-hook,  such  as  for- 
esters use  in  lopping  trees;  and  several  wit- 
nesses swore  that  the  bill-hook  which  was 
shown  them,  stained  with  blood,  and  with  hair 
sticking  on  the  haft — belonged  to  Ludovic 
Adamson.  It  was  also  given  in  evidence — 
though  some  doubts  rested  on  the  nature  of  the 
precise  words — that  on  that  day,  in  the  room 
with  the  corpse,  he  had  given  a  wild  and  in- 
coherent denial  to  the  question  then  put  to  him 
in  the  din,  "  What  he  had  done  with  the  hill- 
hook]"  Nobody  had  seen  it  in  his  possession 
since  the  spring  before;  but  it  had  been  found, 
after  several  weeks'  search,  in  a  hag  in  the 
moss,  in  the  direction  that  he  would  have  most 
probably  taken — had  he  been  the  murderer — 
when  (lying  from  the  spot  lo  the  Inch  where  he 
was  seized.  The  shoes  which  he  had  on  when 
taken,  fitted  the  foot-marks  on  the  ground,  not 
far  from  the  place  of  the  murder,  but  not  so 
perfectly  as  another  pair  which  were  found  in 
the  house.  But  that  other  pair,  it  was  proved, 
belonged'to  the  old  man;  and  therefore  the 
correspondence  between  the  footmarks  and  the 
prisoner's  shoes,  though  not  perfect,  was  a  cir- 
cumstance of  much  suspicion.  But  a  far 
stronger  fact,  in  this  part  of  the  evidence,  was 
sworn  to  against  the  prisoner.  Though  there 
was  no  blood  on  his  shoes — when  apprehended 
his  legs  were  bare — though  that  circumstance, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  had  never  been  noticed 
till  he  was  on  the  way  to  prison!  His  stock- 
ings had  been  next  day  found  lying  on  the 
sward,  near  the  shore  of  the  loch,  manifestly 
after  having  been  washed  and  laid  out  lo  drv 
in  the  sun.  At  mention  of  this  circumstance 
a  cold  shudder  ran  through  the  court;  but 
neither  that,  nor  indeed  any  other  circumstance 
in  the  evidence — not  even  the  account  of  the 
appearance  which  the  murdered  body  exhibit- 
ed when  found  on  the  moor,  or  wlien  after- 
wards laid  on  the  bed— extorted  from  the  pri- 
soner one  groan — one  sigh — or  touched  the 
imperturbable  dealhliness  of  his  countenance. 
It  was  proved,  that  when  searched— in  prison, 
and  not  before ;  for  the  agitation  that  rei-incd 
over  all  assembled  in  the  room  at  Moorside 
that  dreadful  day,  had  confounded  even  those 
accustomed  to  deal  with  suspected  criminals 
--there  were  found  in  his  pocket  a  small 
French  gold  watch,  and  also  a  gold  brooch, 
which  the  ladies  of  the  Castle  had  given  to 
Margaret  Burnside.  On  these  being  taken  from 
him,  he  had  said  nothing,  but  looked  aghast. 
A  C'.i'c.c  of  torn  and  bloody  paper,  which  had  , 


been  picked  up  near  the  body,  was  sworn  to 
be  in  his  handwriting;  and  though  the  mean- 
ing of  the  words— yet  legible — was  obscure, 
they  seemed  to  express  a  request  that  Margaret 
would  meet  him  on  the  moor  on  that  Saturday 
afternoon  she  was  murdered.  The  words 
"Saturday" — "meet  me" — "last  time," — were 
not  indistinct,  and  the  paper  was  of  the  same 
quality  and  colour  with  some  found  in  a  drawer 
in  his  bed-room  at  Moorside.  It  was  proved 
that  he  had  been  drinking  with  some  dissolute 
persons — poachers  and  the  like — in  a  public 
house  in  a  neighbouring  parish  all  Saturday, 
till  well  on  in  the  afternoon,  when  he  left  them 
in  a  state  of  intoxication — and  was  then  seen 
running  along  the  hill  side  in  the  direction  of 
the  moor.  Where  he  passed  the  night  between 
the  Saturday  and  the  Sabbath,  he  could  give 
no  account,  except  once  when  unasked,  and  as 
if  spiiking  to  himself,  he  was  overheard  by 
the  jailer  to  mutter,  "Oh!  that  fatal  night — that 
fatal  night!"  And  then,  when  suddenly  inter- 
rogated, "Where  were  you?"  he  answered, 
"  Asleep  on  thf  hill;"  and  immediately  relapsed 
into  a  state  of  mental  abstraction.  These  were 
the  chief  circumstances  against  him,  which  his 
counsel  had  striven  lo  explain  away.  That 
most  eloquent  person  dwell  with  afTccling 
earnestness  on  the  wickedness  of  (tutting  any 
evil  construction  on  the  distracted  behaviour 
of  the  wretched  man  when  brought  without 
warning  upon  the  sudden  sight  of  the  mangled 
corpse  of  the  beautiful  girl,  whom  all  allowed 
he  had  most  passionately  and  tenderly  loved  ; 
and  he  strove  lo  prove — as  he  did  prove  to  the 
conviction  of  many — that  such  beliaviour  was 
incompatible  with  such  guilt,  and  almost  of 
itself  established  his  innocence.  AH  thai  was 
sworn  to  a'^iiin$t  him,  as  having  passed  in  that 
dreadful  room,  was  in  truth  for  him — unless  all 
our  knowledge  of  ihe  best  and  of  the  worst  of 
human  nature  were  not,  as  folly,  to  be  given 
to  the  winds.  He  beseeched  the  jury,  there- 
fore, to  litdk  at  all  the  other  circumstances  thai 
did  indeed  seem  to  bear  hard  upon  the  pri- 
soner, in  the  li^ht  of  his  inncKence.  and  not  of 
his  guilt,  and  that  they  wou'd  all  fade  into 
nothing.  What  mattered  his  possession  of  the 
watch  and  other  trinkets?  Lovers  as  they 
were,  initrht  not  the  unhappy  girl  have  given 
them  to  him  for  temporary  keepsakes  1  d* 
might  he  not  have  taken  them  from  her  in  some 
playful  mood,  or  received  them — (and  the 
brooch  was  cracked,  and  the  mainspring  of  the 
watch  broken,  though  the  glass  was  whole) — 
to  get  them  repaired  in  the  town,  wliich  he 
often  visited,  and  she  never  ?  Could  human 
credulity  for  one  moment  believe,  thai  such  a 
man  as  the  prisoner  al  the  bar  had  been  sworn 
to  be  by  a  host  of  witnesses — and  especially 
by  that  witne>;s,  who,  with  such  overwhelming 
solemnity,  had  declared  he  loved  him  as  his 
own  son,  and  would  have  been  proud  if  Hea- 
ven had  given  him  such  a  son — he  who  liad  bap- 
tized him.  and  known  him  well  ever  since  a 
child — that  such  a  man  could  rob  the  body  of 
her  whom  he  had  violated  and  murdered  !  If, 
under  the  instigation  of  the  devil,  he  had  rio- 
lated  and  murdered  her,  and  for  a  moment 
were  made  the  hideous  supposition,  did  vast 
hell  hold  that  demon  whose  voice  would  have 


TALE  OF  EXPIATION. 


41 


tempted  the  violator  arid  murderer — suppose 
him  both — yea,  that  man  at  the  bar — sworn  to 
by  all  the  parish,  if  need  were,  as  a  man  of 
tenderest  charities,  and  generosity  unbounded 
—in  the  lust  of  lucre,  consequent  on  the  satiat- 
ing of  another  lust — to  rob  his  victim  of  a  few 
trinkets !  Let  loose  the  wildest  imagination 
into  the  realms  of  wildest  wickedness,  and  yet 
they  dared  not,  as  they  feared  God,  to  credit  for 
a  moment  the  union  of  such  appalling  and 
such  paltry  guilt,  t«  that  man  who  now  trembled 
not  before  them,  but  who  seemed  cut  off  from 
all  the  sensibilities  of  this  life  by  the  scythe 
of  Misery  that  had  shorn  him  down  !  But  why 
try  to  recount,  however  feebl)',  the  line  of 
defence  taken  by  the  speaker,  who  on  that  day 
seemed  all  but  inspired.  The  sea  may  over- 
turn rocks,  or  fire  consume  them  till  they  split 
in  pieces;  but  a  crisis  there  sometimes  is  in 
man's  destiny,  which  all  the  powers  ever 
lodged  in  the  lips  of  man,  were  they  touched 
with  a  coal  from  heaven,  cannot  avert,  and 
when  even  he  who  strives  to  save,  feels  and 
knows  that  he  is  striving  all  in  vain — ay,  vain, 
as  a  worm — to  arrest  the  tread  of  Fate  about 
to  trample  down  its  victim  into  the  dust.  All 
hoped — many  almost  believed — that  the  pri- 
soner would  be  acquitted — that  a  verdict  of 
"Not  Proven,"  at  least,  if  not  of  "  Not  Guilty," 
would  be  returned;  but  they  had  not  been 
sworn  to  do  justice  before  man  and  before 
God — and,  if  need  were,  to  seal  up  even  the 
fountains  of  mercy  in  their  hearts — flowing, 
and  easily  set  a-flowing,  by  such  a  spectacle 
as  that  bar  presented — a  man  already  seeming 
to  belong  unto  the  dead  ! 

In  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour  the  jury  re- 
turned to  the  box — and  the  verdict,  having  been 
sealed  with  black  wax,  was  handed  up  to  the 
Judge,  who  read,  "We  unanimously  find  the 
prisoner  Guilty."  He  then  stood  up  to  receive 
the  sentence  of  death.  Not  a  dry  eye  was  in 
the  court  during  the  Judge's  solemn  and  aflect- 
ing  address  to  the  criminal — except  those  of 
the  Shadow  on  whom  had  been  pronounced  the 
doom.  "  Your  body  will  be  hung  in  chains 
on  the  moor^-on  a  gibbet  erected  on  the  spot 
where  you  murdered  the  victim  of  your  unhal- 
lowed lust,  and  there  will  your  bones  bleach 
in  the  sun,  and  rattle  in  the  wind,  after  the  in- 
sects and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  devoured 
your  flesh  ;  and  in  all  future  times,  the  spot  on 
which,  God-forsaking  and  God-forsaken,  you 
perpetrated  that  double  crime,  at  which  all  hu- 
manity shudders,  will  be  looked  on  from  afar 
by  the  traveller  passing  through  that  lonesome 
wild  with  a  sacred  horror  !"  Here  the  voice 
of  the  Judge  faltered,  and  he  covered  his  face 
with  his  hands;  but  the  prisoner  stood  unmov- 
ed in  figure,  and  in  face  untroubled — and  when 
all  was  closed,  was  removed  from  the  bar,  the 
same  ghostlike  and  unearthly  phantom,  seem- 
ingly unconscious  of  what  had  passed,  or  even 
of  his  own  existence. 

Surely  now  he  will  suffer  his  old  father  to 
visit  him  in  his  cell !  "  Once  more  only — only 
once  more  let  me  see  him  before  I  die  ! "  were 
his  words  to  the  clergyman  of  the  parish, 
whose  Manse  he  had  so  often  visited  when  a 
young  and  happy  boy.  That  servant  of  Christ 
had  not  forsaken  him  whom  now  all  the  world 


had  forsaken.  As  free  from  sin  himself  as 
might  be  mortal  and  fallen  man — mortal  be- 
cause fallen — he  knew  from  Scripture  and  from 
nature,  that  in  "  the  lowest  deep  there  is  still  a 
lower  deep"  in  wickedness,  into  which  all  of 
woman  born  may  fall,  unless  held  back  by  the 
arm  of  the  Almighty  Being,  whom  they  must 
serve  steadfastly  in  holiness  and  truth.  He 
knew,  too,  from  the  same  source,  that  man  can- 
not sin  beyond  the  reach  of  God's  mercy — il 
the  worst  of  all  imaginable  sinners  seek,  in  a 
Bible-breathed  spirit  at  last,  that  mercy  through 
the  Atonement  of  the  Redeemer.  Daily — and 
nightly — he  visited  that  cell ;  nor  did  he  fear 
to  touch  the  hand — now  wasted  to  the  bone — 
which  at  the  temptation  of  the  Prince  of  the 
Air,  who  is  mysteriously  suffered  to  enter  in  at 
the  gates  of  every  human  heart  that  is  guard- 
ed not  by  the  flaming  sword  of  God's  own  Ser- 
aphim— was  lately  drenched  in  the  blood  of 
the  most  innocent  creature  that  ever  looked  on 
the  day.  Yet  a  sore  trial  it  was  to  his  Christi- 
anity to  find  the  criminal  so  obdurate.  He 
would  make  no  confession.  Yet  said  that  it 
was  fit — that  it  was  far  best  that  he  should 
die — that  he  deserved  death  !  But  ever  when 
the  deed  without  a  name  was  alluded  to,  his 
tongue  was  tied;  and  once  in  the  midst  of  an 
impassioned  prayer,  beseeching  him  to  listen 
to  conscience  and  confess — he  that  prayed 
shuddered  to  behold  him  frown,  and  to  hear 
bursting  out  in  terrible  energy,  "Cease — cease 
to  torment  me,  or  you  will  drive  me  to  deny 
my  God ! " 

No  father  came  to  visit  him  in  his  cell.  On 
the  day  of  trial  he  had  been  missing  from 
Moorside,  and  was  seen  next  morning — (where 
he  had  been  all  night  never  was  known — 
though  it  was  afterwards  rumoured  that  one 
like  him  had  been  seen  silting,  as  the  gloaming 
darkened,  on  the  very  spot  of  the  murder) — 
wandering  about  the  hills,  hither  and  thither, 
and  round  and  round  about,  like  a  man  strick- 
en with  blindness,  and  vainly  seeking  to  find 
his  home.  When  brought  into  the  house,  his 
senses  were  gone,  and  he  had  lost  the  power 
of  speech.  All  he  could  do  was  to  mutter 
some  disjointed  syllables,  which  he  did  contin- 
ually, without  one  moment's  cessation,  one  un- 
intelligible and  most  rueful  moan  !  The  figure 
of  his  daughter  seemed  to  cast  no  image  on 
his  eyes — blind  and  dumb  he  sat.where  he  had 
been  placed,  perpetually  wringing  his  hands, 
with  his  shaggy  eyebrows  drawn  high  up  his 
forehead,  and  the  fixed  orbs — though  stone- 
blind  at  least  to  all  real  things — beneath  them 
flashing  fire.  He  had  borne  up  bravely — al- 
most to  the  last — but  had  some  tongue  sylla- 
bled his  son's  doom  in  the  solitude,  and  at  that 
instant  had  insanity  smitten  him! 

Such  utter  prostration  of  intellect  had  been 
expected  by  none  ;  for  the  old  man,  up  to  the 
very  night  before  the  Trial,  had  expressed  the 
most  confident  trust  of  his  son's  acquittal. 
Nothing  had  ever  served  to  shake  his  convic- 
tion of  his  innocence — tnough  he  had  always 
forborne  speaking  about  the  circumstances  of 
the  murder — and  had  communicated  to  nobody 
any  of  the  grounds  dn  which  he  more  than 
hoped  in  a  case  so  hopeless ;  and  though  a 
trouble  in  his  eyes  often  gave  the  lie  to  his  lip  ■ 
d2 


43 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


when  he  used  to  say  to  the  silent  neighbours, 
"We  shall  soon  see  him  back  at  Moorside." 
Had  his  belief  in  his  Ludovic's  innocence,  and 
his  trust  in  God  that  that  innocence  would  be 
established  and  set  free,  been  so  sacred,  that 
the  blow,  when  it  did  come,  struck  him  like  a 
hammer,  and  felled  him  to  the  ground,  from 
•which  he  had  risen  with  a  riven  brain  ?  In 
whatever  way  the  shock  had  been  given,  it  had 
been  terrible;  for  old  Gilbert  Adamson  was 
now  a  confirmed  lunatic,  and  keepers  were  in 
Moorside — not  keepers  from  a  mad-house — for 
his  daughter  could  not  afford  such  tendence — 
but  two  of  her  brother's  friends,  who  sat  up 
with  him  alternately,  night  and  day,  while  the 
arms  of  the  old  man,  in  his  distraction,  had  to 
be  bound  with  cords.  That  dreadful  moaning 
was  at  an  end  now ;  but  the  echoes  of  the  hills 
responded  to  his  yells  and  shrieks;  and  people 
were  afraid  to  go  near  the  house.  It  was  pro- 
posed among  the  neighbours  to  take  Alice  and 
little  Ann  out  of  it ;  and  an  asylum  for  them 
was  in  the  Manse;  but  Alice  would  not  stir  at 


any  thing  could  have  been  seen,  had  been  shut 
fast  against  all  horrid  sights — and  the  horses' 
hoofs  and  the  wheels  must  have  been  muffled 
that  had  brought  that  hideous  Framework  to  the 
Moor.  Bui  there  it  now  stood — a  dreadful 
Tree !  The  sun  moved  higher  and  higher  up 
the  sky,  and  all  the  eyes  of  that  congregatioQ 
were  at  once  turned  towards  the  east,  for  a  dull 
sound,  as  of  rumbling  wheels  and  trampling 
feet,  seemed  shaking  the  Moor  in  that  direc- 
tion ;  and  lo !  surrounded  with  armed  men  on 
horseback,  and  environed  with  halberds,  came 
on  a  cart,  in  which  three  persons  seemed  to  be 
sitting,  he  in  the  middle  all  dressed  in  white — 
the  death-clothes  of  the  murderer — the  unpily- 
ing  shedder  of  most  innocent  blood. 

There  was  no  bell  to  toll  there — but  at  the 
very  moment  he  was  ascending  the  scaffold,  a 
black  cloud  knelled  thunder,  and  many  hun- 
dreds of  people  all  at  once  fell  down  upon  their 
knees.  The  man  in  white  lifted  up  his  eyes, 
and  said.  "  O  Lonl  God  of  Heaven  !  and  Thou 
his  blessed  Son,  who  died  to  save  sinners  !  ac- 


all  their  entreaties  ;  and  as,  in  such  a  case,  it  cept  this  sacrifice  !" 
would  have  been  too  shocking  to  tear  her  away  [  Not  one  in  all  that  immense  crowd  could 
by  violence,  she  was  suffered  to  remain  with  have  known  that  that  white  apparition  was 
him  who  knew  her  not,  but  who  often — it  was  •  Ludovic  Adamson.  His  hair,  that  had  been 
said — stared  distractedly  upon  her,  as  if  she  almost  jel-Mack,  was  now  while  as  his  face — 
had  been  some  fiend  sent  in  upon  his  insanity  '  as  his  figure,  dressed,  as  it  scemetl,  for  the 
from  the  place  of  punishment.  Weeks  pass-  grave.  Are  they  going  lo  execute  ihe  mur- 
ed on,  and  still  she  was  there — hiding  herself i  derer  in  his  shroud?  Stone-blind,  and  stone- 
at  times  from  those  terrifying  eyes  ;  and  from  :  deaf,  there  he  slood — yet  had  he.  without  help, 
her  watching  corner,  waiting  from  morn  till  walked  up  the  steps  of  ihe  sca<?'..ld.  -\  hymn 
night,  and  from  night  till  morn — for  she  sel- 1  of  several  voices  arose — the  inAr.  of  Goil  close 
dom  lay  down  to  sleep,  and  had  never  undress- '  beside  the  criminal,  with  the  Bible  in  his  up- 
ed  herself  since  that  fatal  sentence — for  some  |  lifted  hands;  but  those  bloodless  lips  had  no 
moment  of  exhausted  horror,  when  she  might  j  motion — with  him  this  world  was  not,  though 
steal  out,  and  carry  some  slight  gleam  of  com- 1  yet  he  was  in  life — in  life,  and  no  more  !  And 
fort,  however  evanescent,  to  the  glimmer  or  was  this  the  man  who,  a  few  months  ago, 
the  gloom  in  which  the  brain  of  her  Father  llinsing  ihe  fear  of  death  from  him,  as  a  flash 
swam  through  a  dream  of  blood.  But  there  ',  of  sunshine  (lings  asitle  the  shades,  had  de- 
were  no  lucid  intervals ;  and  ever  as  she  mov- !  scended  into  thai  pit  which  an  hour  before  had 
ed  towards  him,  like  a  pitying  angel,  did  he  fu-i  been  bellowing,  as  the  foul  vapours  exploded 
riously  rage  against  her,  as  if  she  had  been  a  like  cannons,  and  brought  up  ihe  bodies  of 
fiend.  At  last,  she  who,  though  yet  so  young,  them  who  had  perished  in  the  womb  of  the 
had  lived  to  see  the  murdered  corpse  of  her  earth  ?  Was  ihis  he  who  once  leaped  into  the 
dearest  friend — murdered  by  her  own  only  i  devouring  fire,  and  re-appeared,  after  all  had 
brother,  whom,  in  secret,  that  murdered  maid- 1  given  over  for  lost  the  glorious  boy,  with  an 
en  had  most  tenderly  loved — that  murderous  |  infant  in  his  arms,  while  the  flames  seemed  lo 
brother  loaded  with  prison-chains,  and  con-  eddy  back,  thai  they  might  scathe  not  the  head 
demned  to  the  gibbet  for  inexpiable  and  unpar- 1  of  the  deliverer,  and  a  shower  of  blessings  fell 
donable  crimes — her  father  raving  like  a  de- 1  upon  him  as  he  laid  il  in  its  mother's  bosom, 
mon,  self-murderous  were  his  hands  but  free,  \  and  made  the  heart  of  the  widow  to  sing  for 
nor  visited  by  one  glimpse  of  mercy  from  Him  joy  ?  It  is  he.  And  now  the  executioner  pulls 
who  rules  the  skies — after  having  borne  more  |  down  the  cord  from  the  beam,  and  fastens  it 
than,  as  she  meekly  said,  had  ever  poor  girl  |  round  the  criminal's  neck.  His  face  is  already 
borne,  she  took  to  her  bed  quite  heart-broken,  j  covered,  and  that  fatal  handkerchief  is  in  his 
and,  the  night  before  the  day  of  execution.  |  hand.  The  whole  crowd  are  now  kneeling. 
As  for  poor  little  Ann,  she   had    been  I  and  one  multitudinous  sob  convulses  the  air; — 


died. 

wiled  away  some  weeks  before ;  and  in  the 
blessed  thoughtlessness  of  childhood,  was  not 
without  hours  of  happiness  among  her  play- 
mates on  the  braes. 

The  Morning  of  that  Day  arose,  and  the 
Moor  was  all  blackened  with  people  round 
the  tall  gibbet,  f.iat  seemed  to  have  grown, 
With  its  horrid  arms,  out  of  the  eround  during 
the  night.  No  sound  of  axes  or  hammers  had 
been  heard  clinking  during  the  dark  hours- 
nothing  had  been  seen  passing  along  the  road  ; 


when  wild  outcrie-i.  and  shrieks,  and  j'clls,  are 
at  that  moment  heard  from  the  distant  gloom 
of  the  glen  that  opens  up  to  Moorside,  and 
three  fitrures,  one  far  in  advance  of  the  others, 
come  living,  as  on  ihe  wings  of  the  wind,  to 
the  gibbet.  Hundreds  started  lo  their  feet,  and 
" 'Tis  the  maniac — 'tis  the  lunatic!"  was  the 
cry.  Precipitating  himself  down  a  rocky  hill- 
side, that  seemed  hardly  accessible  but  lo  the 
goats,  the  maniac,  the  lunatic,  at  a  fevr  despe- 
rate leaps  and  bounds,  just  as  il  was  expected 


the  windows  of  all  the  houses  from  which  I  he  would  have  been  dashed  in  pieces,  alighted 


TALE  OF  EXPIATION. 


43 


unstunned  upon  the  level  greensward;  and 
now,  far  ahead  of  his  keepers,  with  incredible 
swiftness  neared  the  scalTold — and  the  dense 
crowd  making  a  lane  for  him  in  their  fear  and 
astonishment,  he  Hew  up  the  ladder  to  the  hor- 
rid platform,  and  grasping  his  son  in  his  arms, 
howled  dreadfully  over  him;  and  then  with  a 
loud  voice  cried,  "  Saved — saved — saved  !'' 

So  sudden  kad  been  that  wild  rush,  that  all 
the  officers  of  justice — the  very  executioner — 
stood  aghast;  and  now  the  prisoner's  neck  is 
free  from  that  accursed  cord — his  face  is  once 
more  visible  without  that  hideous  shroud — and 
he  sinks  down  senseless  on  the  scaffold. 
"Seize  him — seize  him  !"  and  he  was  seized — 
but  no  maniac — no  lunatic — was  the  father 
now — for  during  the  night,  and  during  the 
dawn,  and  during  the  morn,  and  on  to  midday — 
on  to  the  Horn  of  O.vf. — when  all  rueful  pre- 
parations were  to  be  completed — had  Provi- 
dence been  clearing  and  calming  the  tumult  in 
that  troubled  brain;  and  as  the  cottage  clock 
struck  oxF.,  menmry  brightened  at  the  chime 
into  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  past,  and  pro- 
phetic imagination  saw  the  future  lowering 
upon  the  dismal  present.  All  night  long,  with 
the  cunning  of  a  madman — for  all  night  long 
he  had  still  been  mad — the  miserable  old  man 
had  been  disengaging  his  hands  from  the  ma- 
nacles, and  that  done,  springing  like  a  wild 
beast  from  his  cage,  he  flew  out  of  the  open 
door,  nor  could  a  horse's  speed  on  that  fearful 
road  have  overtaken  him  before  he  reached  the 
scalFold. 

No  need  was  there  to  hold  the  miserable 
man.  He  who  had  been  so  furious  in  his  ma- 
nacles at  Moorside,  seemed  now,  to  the  people 
at  a  distance,  calm  as  when  he  used  to  sit  in 
the  elder's  seat  beneath  the  pulpit  in  that  small 
kirk.  But  they  who  were  near  or  on  the  scaf- 
fold, saw  something  horrid  in  the  fixedness  of 
his  countenance.  "  Let  go  your  hold  of  me, 
ye  fools !"  he  muttered  to  some  of  the  mean 
wretches  of  the  law,  who  still  had  him  in  their 
clutch — and  tossing  his  hands  on  hi^h,  cried 
with  a  loud  voire,  "(Jive  ear,  ye  Heavens! 
and  hear,  O  Earth !  I  am  the  Violator — I  am 
the  Murderer!" 

The  moor  groaned  as  in  earthquake — and 
then  all  that  congregation  bowed  their  heads 
with  a  rustling  noise,  like  a  wood  smitten  by  the 
wind.  Had  they  heard  aright  the  unimagina- 
ble confession  1  His  head  had  long  been  gray 
-he  had  reached  the  term  allotted  to  man's 
mortal  life  here  below — threescore  and  ten. 
Morning  and  evening,  never  had  the  Bible 
been  out  of  his  hands  at  the  hour  set  apart 
for  family  worship.  And  who  so  eloquent  as 
he  in  expounding  its  most  dreadful  mysteries? 
The  unregenerate  heart  of  man,  he  had  ever 
said — in  scriptural  phrase — was  "desperately 
wicked."  Desperately  wicked  indeed !  And 
now  ajrain  he  tossed  his  arms  wrathfull)- — so 
the  wild  motion  looked — in  the  wrathful  skies. 
"  I  ravished — I  murdered  her — ye  know  it,  ye 
evil  spirits  in  the  depths  of  hell !"  Conster- 
nation now  fell  on  the  minds  of  all — and  the 
truth  was  clear  as  light — and  all  eyes  knew  at 


once  that  now  indeed  they  looked  on  the  mur- 
derer. The  dreadful  delusion  under  which  all 
their  understandings  had  been  brought  by  the 
power  of  circumstances,  was  by  that  voice 
destroyed — the  obduracy  of  him  who  had  been 
about  to  die  was  now  seen  to  have  been  the 
most  heroic  virtue — the  self-sacrifice  of  a  son 
to  save  a  father  from  ignominy  and  death. 

"  O  monster,  beyond  the  reach  of  redemp- 
tion !  and  the  very  day  after  the  murder,  while 
the  corpse  was  lying  in  blood  on  the  Moor,  he 
was  with  us  in  the  House  of  God !  Tear  him 
in  pieces — rend  him  limb  from  limb — tear  him 
into  a  thousand  pieces  !"  "  The  Evil  One  had 
power  given  him  to  prevail  against  me,  and  I 
fell  under  the  temptation.  It  was  so  written  in 
the  Book  of  Predestination,  and  the  deed  lies 
at  the  door  of  God !"  "  Tear  the  blasphemer 
into  pieces  !  Let  the  scaffold  drink  his  blood !" 
— "  So  let  it  be,  if  it  be  so  written,  good  people! 
Satan  never  left  me  since  the  murder  till  this 
day — he  sat  by  my  side  in  the  kirk — when  I 
was  ploughing  in  the  field — there — ever  as  I 
came  back  from  the  other  end  of  the  furrow — 
he  stood  on  the  hcadrig — in  the  shape  of  a  black 
shadow.  But  now  I  see  him  not — he  has  re- 
turned to  his  den  in  the  pit.  I  cannot  imagine 
what  I  have  been  doing,  or  what  has  been  done 
to  me,  all  the  time  between  the  day  of  trial  and 
this  of  execution.  Was  I  mad  ?  No  matter. 
But  you  shall  not  hang  Ludovic — he,  poor 
boy,  is  innocent; — here,  look  at  him — here — 
I  tell  you  again — is  the  Violator  and  the  Mur- 
derer!" 

But  shall  the  men  in  authority  dare  to  stay 
the  execution  at  a  maniac's  words  1  If  they 
dare  not — that  multitude  will,  now  all  rising 
together  like  the  waves  of  the  sea.  "  Cut  the 
cords  asunder  that  bind  our  Ludovic's  arms" 
— a  thousand  voices  cried  ;  and  the  murderer, 
unclasping  a  knife,  that,  all  unknown  to  his 
keepers,  he  had  worn  in  his  breast  when  a 
maniac,  sheared  them  asunder  as  the  sickle 
shears  the  corn.  But  his  son  stirred  not — and 
on  being  lifted  up  by  his  father,  gave  not  so 
much  as  a  groan.  His  heart  had  burst — and 
he  was  dead.  No  one  touched  the  gray-headed 
murderer,  who  knelt  down — not  to  pray — but 
to  look  into  his  son's  eyes — and  to  examine 
his  lips — and  to  feel  his  left  breast — and  to 
search  out  all  the  symptoms  of  a  fainting-fit, 
or  to  assure  himself— and  many  a  corpse  had 
the  plunderer  handled  on  tht  field  after  hush 
of  the  noise  of  battle — that  this  was  death. 
He  rose  ;  and  standing  forward  on  the  edge  of 
the  scaffold,  said,  with  a  voice  that  shook  not, 
deep,  strong,  hollow,  and  hoarse — "Good  people! 
I  am  Ukcieisc  now  the  murderer  of  my  daugh- 
ter and  of  my  son !  and  of  myself!"  Next 
moment  the  knife  was  in  his  heart — and  he  fell 
down  a  corpse  on  the  corpse  of  his  Ludovic. 
All  round  the  sultry  horizon  the  black  clouds 
had  for  hours  been  gathering — and  now  came 
the  thunder  and  the  lightning — and  the  storm. 
Again  the  -whole  multitude  prostrated  them- 
seh-es  on  the  moor — an<'  he  Pastor,  bending 
over  the  dead  bodies,  said, 

"Tuis  IS  Expiation!" 


44 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


MORNING  MONOLOGUE. 


"Knowledge  is  Power."  So  is  Talent — so 
is  Genius — so  is  Virtue.  Which  is  the  great- 
est 1  It  might  seem  hard  to  tell ;  but  united, 
they  go  forth  conquering  and  to' conquer.  Nor 
is  that  union  rare.  Kindred  in  nature,  they 
love  to  dwell  together  in  the  same  "  palace  of 
the  soul."  Remember  Milton.  But  too  often 
they  are  disunited;  and  then,  though  still 
Powers,  they  are  but  feeble,  and  their  defeats 
are  frequent  as  their  triumphs.  What!  is  it 
.so  even  with  Virtue  1  It  is,  and  it  is  not. 
Virtue  may  reign  without  the  support  of  Ta- 
lent and  Genius;  but  her  counsellor  is  Con- 
science, and  what  is  Conscience  but  Reason 
rich  by  birthright  in  knowledge  directly  de- 
rived from  the  heaven  of  heavens  beyond  all 
the  stars  1 

And  may  Genius  and  Talent  indeed  be,  con- 
ceive, and  execute,  without  the  support  of 
Virtue]  You  will  find  that  question  answered 
in  the  following  lines  by  Charles  Grant,  which 
deserve  the  name  of  philosophical  poetry ; — 

Talonts,  'tis  true,  quick,  various,  hriclil,  has  God 
To  Virtue  oft  denied,  on  Vice  liestow'd  ; 
Just  as  fond  Nature  lovelier  colours  lirings 
To  deck  the  insect's  than  the  eagle's  wini.'«. 
But  then  of  man  the  liiah-liorn  nohler  part. 
The  ethereal  enersjies  that  touch  the  heart. 
Creative  Fancy,  laliourinp  Thoupht  intense, 
Imasrinai ion's  wild  majjnificence. 
And  all  the  dread  sublimities  of  Sone — 
These,  Virtue  :  tliesc  to  lliee  alone  helong. 

Such  is  the  natural  constitution  of  humanity; 
and  in  the  happiest  state  of  social  life,  all  its 
noblest  Faculties  would  bear  legitimate  sway, 
each  in  its  own  province,  within  the  spirit's 
ample  domains.  There,  'Genius  would  be 
honoured;  and  Poetry  another  name  for  reli- 
gion. But  to  such  a  state  there  can,  under  the 
most  favouring  skies,  be  no  more  than  an  ap- 
proximation ;  and  the  lime  never  was  when 
Virtue  suffered  no  persecution.  Honour  no 
shame,  Genius  no  neglect,  nor  fetters  were  not 
imposed  by  tyrannous  power  on  the  feet  of 
the  free.  The  age  of  Homer,  the  age  of  ."^olon, 
the  age  of  Pericles,  the  age  of  Nuina,  the  age 
of  Augustus,  the  age  of  Alfred,  the  age  of  Leo, 
the  age  of  Elizabeth,  the  age  of  Anne,  the  age 
of  Scott,  Wordsworth,  and  Byron,  have  they 
not  been  all  bright  and  great  ages?  Yet  had 
they  been  faithfully  chronicled,  over  the  mise- 
ry and  madness  of  how  many  despairing  spi- 
rits fraught  with  heavenly  fire,  might  we  not 
have  been  called  to  pour  forth  our  unavailing 
indignations  and  griefs ! 

Under  despotic  governments,  again,  such  as 
have  sunk  deep  their  roots  into  Oriental  soils, 
and  beneath  Oriental  skies  prosperously  ex- 
panded their  long-enduring  umbrace,  where 
might  is  right,  and  submission  virtue,  noble- 
minded  men— for  sake  of  that  peace  which  is 
ever  dearest  to  the  human  heart,  and  if  it  de- 
scend not  a  glad  and  gracious  gift  from  Heaven, 
will  yet  not  ungratefullj  be  accepted  when 
breathed  somewhat  sadly  from  the  quieted  bo- 
som of  earth  by  tyranny  saved  from  trouble- 
have  submitted,  almost  without  mournin»,  to 


sing  "  many  a  lovely  lay,"  that  perished  like 
the  flowers  around  thera,  in  praise  of  the 
Power  at  whose  footstool  they  "  stooped  their 
anointed  heads  as  low  as  death."  Even  then 
has  Genius  been  honoured,  because  though  it 
ceased  to  be  august,  still  it  was  beautilul ;  it 
seemed  to  change  fetters  of  iron  into  bands  of 
roses,  and  to  halo  with  a  glory  the  brows  of 
slaves.  The  wine-cup  mantled  in  its  light; 
and  Love  forgot  in  the  bower  Poetry  built  for 
bliss,  that  the  bride  might  be  torn  from  the 
bridegroom's  bosom  on  her  bridal  night  by  a 
tyrant's  lust.  Even  there  Genius  was  happy, 
and  dillused  happiness ;  at  its  bidding  was 
heard  pipe,  tabor,  and  dulcimer;  and  to  his 
lips  "  Warbling  melody"  life  floated  by,  in  the 
midst  of  all  oppression,  a  not  undelightful 
dream  ! 

But  how  has  it  been  with  us  in  our  Green 
Island  of  the  West  ?  Some  people  are  afraid  of 
revolutions.  Heaven  pity  thera!  we  have  had 
a  hundred  since  the  Roman  bridged  our  rivers, 
and  led  his  highways  over  our  mountains. 
And  what  the  worse  have  we  been  of  being 
thus  revolved  ?  We  are  no  radicals;  but  we 
dearly  love  a  revolution — like  that  of  the  stars 
No  two  nights  are  the  heavens  the  same — all 
the  luminaries  are  revolving  to  the  music  of 
their  own  spheres — Uu)k,  we  beseech  you,  on 
that  new-risen  star.  He  is  elected  by  universal 
surtrage — a  glorious  representative  of  a  million 
lesser  lichts  ;  and  on  dissolution  of  r/in/ Parlia- 
ment— how  silent  but  how  cloqmnt! — he  is 
sure  of  his  return.  Why,  we  should  dearly 
love  the  late  revolution  we  have  seen  below — 
it  is  no  lon?er  called  Reform — were  it  to  fling 
up  to  free  light  from  fettered  darkness  a  few 
fine  bold  original  spirits,  who  might  give  the 
whole  world  a  new  character,  and  a  more  ma- 
jestic aspect  to  crouching  life.  But  we  look 
abroad  and  see  strutting  to  and  fro  the  sons  of 
little  men  blown  up  with  vanity,  in  a  land 
where  tradition  not  yet  old  tells  of  a  race  of 
giants.  We  are  ashamed  of  our.sclrcs  to  think 
we  feared  the  throes  of  the  times,  seeing  not 
portentous  but  pitiable  births.  Brush  these 
away;  and  let  us  think  of  the  great  dead — let 
us  look  on  the  great  living — and,  strong  in  nie- 
»ior>-  and  hope,  be  confident  in  the  cause  i>f 
Freedom.  "  Great  men  have  Utn  among  us — 
better  none ;"  and  can  it  be  said  that  »i"ir  there 
is  "a  want  of  books  and  men,"  or  that  those 
we  have,  are  mere  dwarfs  and  duodecimos  1 
Is  there  no  energy,  no  spirit  of  adventure  and 
enterprise,  no  passion  in  the  character  of  our 
country  1     Has  not  wide  over  earth 

"  Encland  jont  tier  men,  of  men  the  rhirf. 
To  plant  the  Tree  of  Life,  to  plant  fair  Freedom's  Tree  1" 

Has  not  she,  the  Heart  of  Europe  and  the 
(jueen,  kindled  .\merica  into  life,  and  raised 
up  in  the  New  World  a  power  to  balance  the 
Old,  star  steadying  star  in  their  unconflicting 
courses!  You  can  scarce  see  her  shores  for 
ships;  her  inland  groves  are  crested  with 
towers  and  temples  ;  and  mists  brooding  at  in 


MORNING  MONOLOGUE. 


4S 


tervals  over  her  far-extended  plains,  tell  of 
towns  and  cities,  their  hum  unheard  by  the 
gazer  from  her  glorious  hills.  Of  such  a  land 
it  would  need  a  gifted  eye  to  look  into  all  that 
is  passing  within  the  mighty  heart ;  but  it  needs 
no  giAed  eye,  no  gifted  ear,  to  see  and  hear 
there  the  glare  and  the  groaning  of  great  an- 
guish, as  of  lurid  breakers  tumbling  in  and 
out  of  the  caves  of  the  sea.  But  is  it  or  is  it 
not  a  land  where  all  the  faculties  of  the  soul 
are  free  as  they  ever  were  since  the.  Fall  ? 
Grant  that  there  are  tremendous  abuses  in  all 
departments  of  public  and  private  life;  that 
rulers  and  legislators  have  often  been  as  deaf  to 
the  "still  small  voice"  as  to  the  cry  of  the  mil- 
lion; that  they  whom  they  have  ruled,  and  for 
whom  they  have  legislated  often  so  unwisely  or 
wickedly,  have  been  as  often  untrue  to  them- 
selves, and  in  self-imposed  idolatry 

"Flave  bow'd  their  knees 
To  despicable  gods  ;" 

Yet  base,  blind  and  deaf  (and  better  dumb) 
must  be  he  who  would  deny,  that  here  Genius 
has  had,  and  now  has  her  noblest  triumphs ; 
that  Poetry  has  here  kindled  purer  fires  on 
loftier  altars  than  ever  sent  up  their  incense 
to  Grecian  skies  ;  that  Philosophy  has  sounded 
depths  in  which  her  torch  was  not  extinguish- 
ed, but,  though  bright,  could  pierce  not  the 
"  heart  of  the  mystery"  into  which  it  sent  some 
strong  illuminations  ;  that  Virtue  here  has  had 
chosen  champions,  victorious  in  their  martyr- 
dom; and  Religion  her  ministers  and  her  ser- 
vants not  unworthy  of  her  whose  title  is  from 
heaven. 

Causes  there  have  been,  are,  and  ever  will 
be,  why  often,  even  here,  the  very  highest  fa- 
culties "  rot  in  cold  obstruction."  But  in  all 
the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  have  not  the  best 
the  best  chance  to  win  the  day  ?  Who,  in 
general,  achieve  competence,  wealth,  splen- 
dour, magnificence,  in  their  condition  as  citi- 
zens I  The  feeble,  the  ignorant,  and  the  base, 
or  the  strong,  the  instructed,  and  the  bold  1 
Would  you,  at  the  oflstarl,  back  mediocrity 
with  alien  influence,  against  Jiigh  talent  with 
none  but  its  own — the  native  "  might  that 
slumbers  in  a  peasant's  arm,"  or,  nobler  far, 
that  which  neither  sleeps  nor  slumbers  in  a 
peasant's  heart?  There  is  something  abhorrent 
from  every  sentiment  in  man's  breast  to  see, 
as  we  too  often  do,  imbecility  advanced  to  high 

S laces  by  the  mere  accident  of  high  birth, 
lut  how  our  hearts  warm  within  us  to  behold 
the  base-born,  if  in  Britain  we  may  use  the 
word,  by  virtue  of  their  own  irresistible  ener- 
gies, taking  precedence,  rightful  and  gladly 
granted  of  the  blood  of  kings  !  Yet  we  have 
heard  it  whispered,  insinuated,  surmised,  spo- 
ken, vociferated,  howled,  and  roared  in  a  voice 
of  small-beer-souring  thunder,  that  Church 
and  State,  Army  and  Navy,  are  all  officered  by 
the  influence  of  the  Back-stairs — that  few  or 
none  but  blockheads,  by  means  of  brass  only, 
mount  from  the  Bar  which  they  have  disturb- 
ed to  that  Bench  which  they  disgrace  ;  and 
that  mankind  intrust  the  cure  of  all  diseases 
their  flesh  is  heir  to,  to  the  exclusive  care  of 
every  here  and  there  a  handful  of  old  women. 
Whether  overstocked  or  not,  'twould  be  hard 
to  say,  but  all  professions  are  full — from  that 


of  Peer  to  that  of  Beggar.  To  live  is  the  most 
many  of  us  can  do.  Why  then  complain  1 
Men  should  not  complain  when  it  is  their  duty 
as  men  to  work.  Silence  need  not  be  sullen — 
but  better  sullenness  than  all  this  outrageous 
outer}-,  as  if  words  the  winds  scatter,  were  to 
drop  into  the  soil  and  grow  up  grain.  Proces- 
sions !  is  this  a  time  for  full-grown  men  in 
holj'day  shows  to  play  the  part  of  children? 
If  they  desire  aflvancement,  let  them,  like  their 
betters,  turn  to  and  work.  All  men  worth 
mentioning  in  this  country  belong  to  the  work- 
ing classes.  What  seated  Thurlow,  and  Wed- 
derburne,  and  Scott,  and  Erskine,  and  Copley, 
and  Brougham  on  the  woolsack?  Work. 
What  made  Wellington  ?  For  seven  years 
war  all  over  Spain,  and  finally  at  Waterloo — 
work — bloody  and  glorious  work. 

Yet  still  the  patriot  cry  is  of  sinecures. 
Let  the  few  sluggards  that  possess  but  cannot 
enjoy  them,  doze  away  on  them  till  sinecures 
and  sinecurists  drop  into  the  dust.  Shall  such 
creatures  disturb  the  equanimity  of  the  mag- 
nanimous working-classes  of  England?  True 
to  themselves  in  life's  great  relations,  they 
need  not  grudge,  for  a  little  while  longer,  the 
paupers  a  few  paltry  pence  out  of  their  earn- 
ings; for  they  know  a  sure  and  silent  death- 
blow has  been  struck  against  that  order  of 
things  by  the  sense  of  the  land,  and  that  all 
who  receive  wages  must  henceforth  give  work. 
All  along  that  has  been  the  rule — these  are  the 
exceptions ;  or  say,  that  has  been  the  law — 
these  are  its  revolutions.  Let  there  be  high 
rewards,  and  none  grudge  them — in  honour 
and  gold — for  high  work.  And  men  of  high 
talents — never  extinct — will  reach  up  theii 
hands  and  seize  them,  amidst  the  acclama- 
tions of  a  people  who  have  ever  taken  pride 
in  a  great  ambition.  If  the  competition  is  to 
be  in  future  more  open  than  ever,  to  know  it 
is  so  will  rejoice  the  souls  of  all  who  are  not 
slaves.  But  clear  the  course!  Let  not  the 
crowd  rush  in — for  by  doing  so,  they  Avill  bring 
down  the  racers,  and  be  themselves  trampled 
to  death. 

Now  we  say  that  the  race  is — if  not  always 
— ninety-nine  times  in  a  hundred — to  the  swif\, 
and  the  battle  to  the  strong.  We  may  have 
been  fortunate  in  our  naval  and  military 
friends;  but  we  cannot  charge  our  memory 
with  a  single  consummate  ass  holding  a  disi 
tinguished  rank  in  either  service.  That  such 
consummate  asses  are  in  both,  we  have  been 
credibly  informed,  and  believe  it ;  and  we  have 
sometimes  almost  imagined  that  we  heard  their 
bray  at  no  great  distance,  and  the  flapping  of 
their  ears.  Poor  creatures  enough  do  rise  by 
seniority  or  purchase,  or  if  anybody  knows 
how  else,  we  do  not;  and  such  will  be  the 
case  to  the  end  of  the  chapter  of  human  acci- 
dents. But  merit  not  only  makes  the  man, 
but  the  ofiicer  on  shore  and  at  sea.  They  are 
as  noble  and  discontented  a  set  of  fellows  all, 
as  ever  boarded  or  stormed;  and  they  will 
continue  so,  not  till  some  change  in  the  Ad- 
miralty, or  at  the  Horseguards,  for  Sir  James 
Grahame  does  his  duty,  and  so  does  Lord  Hill; 
but  till  a  change  in  humanity,  for  'tis  no  moif. 
than  Adam  did,  and  we  attribute  whatever  may 
be  amiss  or  awry,  chiefly  to  the  Fall.    Let  the 


416 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


radicals  set  poor  human  nature  on  her  legs 
again,  and  what  would  become  of  them?  In 
the  French  service  there  is  no  rising  at  all,  it 
seems,  but  by  merit ;  but  there  is  also  much 
running  away ;  not  in  a  disgraceful  style,  for 
our  natural  enemies,  and  artificial  friends  are 
a  brave  race,  but  in  mere  indignation  and  dis- 
gust to  see  troops  so  shamefully  ill-ofRcered  as 
ours,  which  it  would  be  a  disgrace  to  look  in 
the  face  on  the  field,  either  in*  column  or  line. 
Therefore  they  never  stand  a  charge,  but  are 
off  in  legions  of  honour,  eagles  and  all,  before 
troops  that  have  been  so  uniformly  flogged 
from  time  immemorial,  as  to  have  no  other 
name  but  raw  lobsters,  led  on  by  officers  all 
shivering  or  benumbed  under  the  "  cold  shade 
of  aristocracy,"  like  Picton  and  Pack. 

We  once  thought  of  going  ourselves  to  the 
English  Bar,  but  were  dissuaded  from  doing 
so  by  some  judicious  friends,  who  assured  us 
we  should  only  be  throwing  away  our  great 
talents  and  unexampled  eloquence ;  for  that  ] 
success  depended  solely  on  interest,  and  we 
had  none  we  knew  of,  either  in  high  places  or 
in  low,  and  had  then  never  seen  an  attorney. 
We  wept  for  the  fate  of  many  dear  friends  in 
wigs,  and  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem. 
On  our  return  from  Palestine  and  other  foreign 
parts,  behold  them  all  bending  under  briefs, 
bound  by  retaining  fees,  or  like  game-hawks, 
wheeling  in  airy  circuits  over  the  rural  pro- 
vinces, and  pouncing  down  on  their  prey, 
away  to  their  eyries  with  talon-fulls,  which 
they  devoured  at  their  luxurious  leisure,  un- 
troubled by  any  callow  young!  They  now 
compose  the  Bench. 

Ere  we  set  off  for  Salem,  we  had  thoughts 
of  entering  the  Church,  and  of  becoming  Bi- 
shops. But  'twas  necessary,  we  were  told, 
first  to  be  tutor  to  a  lord.  That,  in  our  pride, 
we  could  not  stomach ;  but  if  ours  had  not 
been  the  sin  by  which  Satan  fell,  where  now 
had  been  the  excellent  Howley?  All  our 
habits  in  youth  led  us  to  associate  much  with 
intending  divines.  A  few  of  them  arc  still 
curates;  but  'twere  vain  to  try  to  count  the 
vicars,  rectors,  canons,  deans,  archdeacons, 
and  bishops,  with  whom,  when  we  were  all 
under-graduates  together  at  Oxford,  we  used  to 
do  nothing  but  read  Greek  all  dav.  and  Latin 
all  night.  Yet  you  hear  nothing  but  abuse'of 
such  a  Church !  and  are  told  to  look  at  the 
Dissenters.  We  do  look  at  them,  and  an 
uglier  set  we  never  saw ;  not  one  in  a  hundred, 
in  his  grimness,  a  gentleman.  Not  a  single 
scholar  have  they  got  to  show,  and  now  that 
Hall  IS  mute,  not  one  orator.  Their  divinity 
IS  of  the  dust— and  their  discourses  drv  bones. 
Down  with  the  old  Universities— up  with  new. 
The  old  are  not  yet  down,  but  the  new  are  up ; 
and  how  dazzling  the  contrast,  even  to  the 
purblmd!  You  may  hew  down  trees,  but  not 
towers ;  and  Granta  and  Rhedicvna  will  show 
their  temples  to  the  sun,  ages  afiersuch  struc- 
tures shall  have  become  hospitals.  Thev  en- 
lighten the  land.  Beloved  are  they  by  ail  the 
gentlemen  of  England.  Even  the  plucked  think 
of  them  with  tears  of  filial  reverence,  and 
having  renewed  their  plumage,  clap  their 
■wings  and  crow  defiance  to  all  their  foes.  \ 
man,  you  say,  can  get  there  no  education  to 


fit  him  for  life.  Bah  !  Tell  that  to  the  marines. 
Now  and  then  one  meets  a  man  eminent  in  a 
liberal  profession,  who  has  not  been  at  any 
place  that  could  easily  be  called  a  College. 
But  the  great  streams  of  talent  in  England 
keep  perpetually  flowing  from  the  gates  of  her 
glorious  Universities — and  he  who  would  deny 
it  in  any  mixed  company  of  leading  men  in 
London,  would  only  have  to  open  his  eyes  in 
the  hush  that  rebuked  his  folly,  to  see  that  he 
was  a  Cockney,  clever  enough,  perhaps,  in 
his  own  small  way,  and  the  author  of  some 
sonnets,  but  even  to  his  own  feelings  painfully 
out  of  place  among  men  who  had  not  studied 
at  the  Surrey. 

We  cannot  say  that  we  have  any  fears,  this 
fine  clear  September  morning,  for  the  Church 
of  England  in  England.  In  Ireland,  deserted 
and  betrayed,  it  has  received  a  dilapidating 
1  shock.  Fain  would  seven  millions  of  "  the 
'  finest  people  on  the  earth,"  and  likewise  the 
I  most  infatuated,  who  are  so  proud  of  the  ver- 
I  dure  of  their  isle,  that  they  love  to  make  "the 
green  one  red,"  see  the  entire  edifice  over- 
thrown, not  one  stone  left  upon  another;  and 
its  very  name  smothered  in  a  smoky  cloud  of 
I  asccndinir  dust.  They  have  lold  us  so  in  yells, 
over  winch  has  still  been  heard  "  the  wolf's 
long  howl,"  the  savage  cr)'  of  the  O'Connell. 
And  Ministers  who  pretend  to  be  Protestants, 
and  in  reform  have  not  yet  declared  against 
the  Reformation,  have  tamely  yielded,  recreants 
from  the  truth,  to  brawlers  who  would  pull 
down  her  holiest  altars,  and  given  up  "  pure 
religion,  breathing  household  laws,"  a  sacrifice 
to  superstition.  But  there  is  a  power  enshrined 
in  England  which  no  Govornmrnt  dare  seek  to 
desecrate — in  the  hearts  of  the  good  and  wise, 
grateful  to  an  establishment  that  has  guarded 
Christianity  from  corruption,  and  is  venerated 
by  all  the  most  enlightened  spirits  who  con- 
scientiously worship  without  its  pale,  and 
know  that  in  the  peaceful  shadow  of  its 
strength  repose  their  own  humbler  and  un- 
troubled altars. 

We  have  be«i  taking  a  cheerful — a  hopeful 
view  of  our  surrounding  world,  as  it  is  in- 
closed within  these  our  seas,  whose  ideal  mur- 
mur seemed  awhile  to  breathe  in  unison  with 
our  Monologue.  We  have  been  believing,  that 
in  this  our  native  land,  the  road  of  merit  is 
the  road  to  success — say  happiness.  And  is 
not  the  law  the  same  in  the  world  of  Litera- 
ture and  the  Fine  Arts  ?  Give  a  great  genius 
any  thing  like  fair  play,  and  he  will  gain  glory, 
nay  bread.  True,  he  may  be  before  his  age, 
and  may  have  to  create  his  worshippers.  But 
how  few  such  !  And  is  it  a  disgrace  to  an  age 
to  produce  a  genius  whose  grandeur  it  cannot 
all  at  once  comprehend  !  The  works  of  genius 
are  surely  not  often  incomprehensible  to  the 
highest  contemporary  minds,  and  if  they  win 
their  admiration,  pity  not  the  poor  Poet.  But 
pray  syllable  the  living  Poet's  name  who  has 
had  reason  to  complain  of  having  fallen  on 
evil  days,  or  who  is  with  "  darkness  and  with 
danger  compassed  round."  From  humblest 
birth-places  in  the  obscurest  nooks  frequently 
have  we  seen 

"The  (\ilgeiit  bead 
Star-bright  appear;" 


MORNING  MONOLOGUE. 


4V 


from  unsuspected  rest  among  the  water-lilies 
of  the  mountain-mere,  the  snow-white  swan  in 
full  plumage  soar  into  the  sky.  Hush !  no 
nonsense  about  Wordsworth.  "  Far-off  his 
coming  shone  ;"  and  what  if,  for  a  while,  men 
knew  not  whether  'twas  some  mirage-glimmer, 
or  the  dawning  of  a  new  "  orb  of  song  !" 

We  have  heard  rather  too  much  even  from 
that  great  poet  about  the  deafness  and  blind- 
ness of  the  present  time.  No  Time  but  the 
future,  he  avers,  has  ears  or  eyes  for  divine 
music  and  light.  Was  Homer  in  his  own  day 
obscure,  or  Shakspeare  ?  But  Heaven  forbid 
we  should  force  the  bard  into  an  argument ; 
we  allow  him  to  sit  undisturbed  by  us  in  the 
bower  nature  delighted  to  build  for  him,  with 
small  help  from  his  own  hands,  at  the  dim  end 
of  that  alley  green,  among  lake-murmur  and 
mountain-shadow,  for  ever  haunted  by  enno- 
bling visions.  But  we  love  and  respect  present 
Time — partly,  we  confess,  because  he  has 
shown  some  little  kindly  feeling  for  ourselves, 
whereas  we  fear  Future  Time  may  forget  us 
among  many  others  of  his  worthy  father's 
friends,  and  the  name  of  Christopher  North 
"Die  on  his  ears  a  faint  unheeded  sound." 

But  Present  Time  has  not  been  unjust  to  Wil- 
liam Wordsworth.  Some  small  temporalities 
•were  so ;  imps  running  about  the  feet  of  Pre- 
sent Time,  and  sometimes  making  him  stum- 
ble :  but  on  raising  his  eyes  from  the  ground, 
he  saw  something  shining  like  an  Apparition 
on  the  mountain  top,  and  he  hailed,  and  with 
a  friendly  voice,  the  advent  of  another  true 
Poet  of  nature  and  of  man. 

We  must  know  how  to  read  that  prophet,  be- 
fore we  preach  from  any  text  in  his  book  of 
revelations. 

"We  pnotfi  In  our  youth  b«rin  in  gladness. 
But  tln-reof  romei  in  the  end  despondency  and  madness." 

Why  spoke  he  thus  ?  Because  a  deep  dark- 
ness had  fallen  upon  him  all  alone  in  a  moun- 
tain-cave, and  he  quaked  before  the  mystery 
of  man's  troubled  life. 

"lie  thought  of  rhatlcrton,  the  marvellous  boy. 
The  sli'rplfiis  soul  that  perish'd  in  his  pride  ; 
Of  him  who  walk'd  in  clory  and  in  joy. 

Following  his  plough  upon  ihe  mountain  side  ;" 

and  if  they  died  miserably,  "  How  may  I 
perish !"  But  they  wanted  wisdom.  There- 
fore the  marvellous  boy  drank  one  bowl  drug- 
ged with  sudden,  and  the  glorious  ploughman 
many  bowls  drugged  with  lingering  death.  If 
we  must  weep  over  the  woes  of  Genius,  let  us 
know  for  whom  we  may  rightly  shed  our  tears. 
With  one  drop  of  ink  you  may  write  the  names 
of  all 

"  The  mighty  Poets  in  their  misery  dead." 

Wordsworth  wrote  those  lines,  as  we  said,  in 
the  inspiration  of  a  profound  but  not  permanent 
melancholy ;  and  they  must  not  be  profaned 
by  being  used  as  a  quotation  in  defence  of 
accusations  against  human  society,  which, 
in  some  lips,  become  accusations  against 
Providence.  The  mighty  Poets  have  been 
not  only  wiser,  but  happier  than  they  knew; 
and  what  glory  from  heaven  and  earth  was 
poured  over  their  inward  life,  up  to  the  very 
moment  it  darkened  away  into  the  gloom  of 
the  grave ! 


Many  a  sad  and  serious  hour  have  we  read 
D'lsraeli,  and  many  a  lesson  may  all  lovers  of 
literature  learn  from  his  well-instructed  books. 
But  from  the  unhappy  stories  therein  so  feel- 
ingly and  eloquently  narrated,  has  many  "a 
famous  ape"  drawn  conclusions  the  very 
reverse  of  those  which  he  himself  leaves  to  be 
drawn  by  all  minds  possessed  of  any  philoso- 
phy. Melancholy  the  moral  of  these  moving 
tales ;  but  we  must  look  for  it,  not  into  the 
society  that  surrounds  us,  though  on  it  too  we 
must  keep  a  watchful,  and,  in  spite  of  all  its 
sins,  a  not  irreverent  eye,  but  into  our  own 
hearts.  There  lies  the  source  of  evil  which 
some  evil  power  perhaps  without  us  stirs  up 
till  it  wells  over  in  misery.  Then  fiercely 
turns  the  wretch  first  against  "  the  world  and 
the  world's  law,"  both  sometimes  iniquitous, 
and  last  of  all  against  the  rebellious  spirit  in 
his  own  breast,  but  for  whose  own  innate  cor- 
ruption his  moral  being  would  have  been  vic- 
torious against  all  outward  assaults,  violent  or 
insidious,  "and  to  the  end  persisting  safe 
arrived." 

Many  men  of  genius  have  died  without  their 
fame,  and  for  their  fate  we  may  surely  mourn, 
without  calumniating  our  kind.  It  was  thejr 
lot  to  die.  Such  was  the  will  of  God.  Many 
such  have  come  and  gone,  ere  they  knew  them- 
selves what  they  were  ;  their  brothers,  and 
sisters,  and  friends  knew  it  not;  knew  it  not 
their  fathers  and  mothers ;  nor  the  village 
maidens  on  whose  bosoms  they  laid  their  dying 
heads.  Many,  conscious  of  the  divine  llame, 
and  visited  by  mysterious  stirrings  that  would 
not  let  them  rest,  have  like  vernal  wild-flowers 
withered,  or  been  cut  down  like  young  trees  in 
the  season  of  leaf  and  blossom.  Of  this  our 
mortal  life  what  are  these  but  beautiful  evan- 
ishings  !  Such  was  our  young  Scottish  Poet, 
Michael  Bruce — a  fine  scholar,  who  taught  a 
little  wayside  school,  and  died,  a  mere  lad,  of 
consumption.  Loch  Leven  Castle,  where  Mary 
Stuart  was  imprisoned,  looks  not  more  melan- 
choly among  the  dim  waters  for  her  than  for 
its  own  Poet's  sake !  The  linnet,  in  its  joy 
among  the  yellow  broom,  sings  not  more 
sweetly  than  did  he  in  his  sadness,  sitting 
beside  his  unopened  grave,  "  one  song  that  will 
not  die,"  though  the  dirge  but  draw  now  and 
then  a  tear  from  some  simple  heart. 

"  Now  spring  returns— but  not  to  me  returns 

The  vernal  joy  my  better  years  have  known  ; 
Dim  in  my  breast  life's  dying  taper  burns. 
And  all  the  joys  of  life  with  health  are  flown." 

To  young  Genius  to  die  is  often  a  great 
gain.  The  green  leaf  was  almost  hidden  in 
blossoms,  and  the  tree  put  forth  beautiful 
promise.  Cold  winds  blew,  and  clouds  inter- 
cepted the  sunshine;  but  it  felt  the  dews  of 
heaven,  and  kept  flourishing  fair  even  in  the 
moonlight,  deriving  sweet  sustenance  from  the 
stars.  But  would  all  those  blossoms  ha7<J 
been  fruit  ?  Many  would  have  formed,  but 
more  perhaps  dropt  in  unperceived  decay,  and 
the  tree  which  "  all  eyes  that  looked  on  loved," 
might  not  have  been  the  pride  of  the  garden. 
Death  could  not  permit  the  chance  of  such  dis 
appointment,  stepped  kindly  in,  and  lelt  the 
spring-dream  "  sweet  but  mournful  to  the  soul," 
among  its  half-fancied  memories.    Such  was 


48 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


the  fate,  perhaps,  of  Henry  Kirke  White.    His 
fine  moral  and  intellectual  being  was  not  left 
to  pine  away  neglected;  and  if,  in  gratitude 
and  ambition,  twin-births  in  that  noble  heart, 
he  laid  down  his  life  for  sake   of  the  lore  he 
loved,  let  us  lament  the  dead  with  no  passion- 
ate ejaculations  over  injustice  by  none  com- 
mitted, console  ourselves  with  the  thought,  in 
noways  unkind  to  his  merits,  that  he  died  in  a 
mild  bright  spring  that  might  have  been  suc- 
ceeded by  no  very  glorious  summer;  and  that, 
fading  away  as  he  did  among  the  tears  of  the 
good   and  great,  his   memory  has    been  em- 
balmed, not  only  in  his  own  gentle  inspirations, 
but  in  the  immortal  eulogy  of  Southey.     But,  i 
alas!  many  thus  endowed  by  nature  "  have  j 
waged  with    fortune   an  unequal  war;"  and 
pining  away  in  poverty  and  disappointment,  | 
have  died  broken-hearted — and  been  buried —  I 
some  in  unhonoured — some  even  in  unwept 
graves !     And  how  many  have  had  a  far  more 
dismal  lot,  because  their  life  was  not  so  inno- 
cent !     The  children  of  misfortune,  but  of  error 
too — of  frailly,   vice,   and   sin.      Once   gone 
astray,  with  much  to  tempt  ihcm  on,  and  no , 
voice,  no  hand,  to  draw  them  back,  theirs  has  , 
been  at  first  a  flowery  descent  to  death,  but 
soon  sorely  beset  with  thorns,  lacerating  the  1 
friendless  wretches,  till,  with  shame  and  re- 1 
morse  their  sole  attendants,  they  have  tottered 
into  uncoflined  holes  and  found  peace. 

With  sorrows  and  sufferings   like  these,  it 
would  be  hardly  fair  to  blame  society  at  large 
for  having  little  or  no  sympathy;  for  they  are, 
in  the  most  alfcciing  cases,  borne  in  silence.  I 
and  are  unknown   even  to   the  generous  and 
humane   in   their    own    neighbourhood,   who  i 
might  have  done  something  or  much  to  aflord 
encouragement  or  relief.     Nor   has    Charity 
always  neglected  those  who  so  well  deserved 
her  open  hand,  and  in  their  virtuous  poverty 
might,  without  abatement  of  honourable  pride  j 
in  themselves,  have  accepted  silent  succour  to  | 
silent  distress.     Pity  that  her  blessings  should  , 
be  so  often  intercepted  by  worthless  applicants, 
on  their  way,  it  may  be  said,  to  the  magiiani-' 
mous  who  have  not  applied  at  all,  but  spoken  ' 
to  her  heart  in  a  silent  language,  which  was  j 
not  meant  even  to  express  the  penury  it  be- 
trayed.   But  we  shall  never  believe  tliat  dew 
twice  blessed  seldom  descends,  in  such  a  land  ' 
as  ours,  on  the  noble  young  head  that  else  had 
sunk  like  a  chance  flower  in  some  dank  shade, 
left  to  wither  among  weeds.     We  almost  ven- 
ture to  say,  that  much  of  such  unpiticd,  be- 
cause often  unsuspected  suflering,  cannot  cease 
to  be  without  a  change  in  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  the  world. 

Nor  has  Genius  a  right  to  claim  from  Con- 
science what  is  due  but  to  Virtue.  None  who 
love  humanity  can  wish  to  speak  harshlv  of 
its  mere  frailties  or  errors— but  none  who 
revere  morality  can  allow  privilecre  to  its 
sins.  All  who  sin  suft'er,  with  or  without 
genius;  and  we  are  nowhere  taught  in  the 
New  Testament,  that  remorse  in  its  agony, 
and  penitence  in  its  sorrow,  visit  men's  ima- 
ginations only ;  but  whatever  way  they  enter, 
their  rueful  dwelling  is  in  the  heart.  Poets' 
S'hcd  no  bitterer  tears  than  ordinary  men ;  and 
Fonblanque  finely  showed  us,  in  one  of  his  late 


little  essays,  clear  as  wells  and  deep  as  tarns, 
that  so  far  from  their  being  any  thing  in  the 
constitution  of  genius  naturally  kindred  either 
to  vice  or  misery,  it  is  framed  of  light  and  love 
and  happiness,  and  that  its  sins  and  sufl^erings 
come  not  from  the  spirit  but  from  the  flesh. 
Yet  is  its  flesh  as  firm,  and  perhaps  somewhat 
finer  than  that  of  the  common  clay ;  but  still 
it  is  clay — for  all  men  are  dust. 

But  what  if  they  who,  on  the  ground  of  ge- 
nius, claim  exemption  from  our  blame,  and 
inclusion  within  our  sympathies,  even  when 
seen  sufl^ering  from  their  own  sins,  have  no 
genius  at  all,  but  are  mere  ordinary  men,  and 
but  for  the  fumes  of  some  physical  excitement, 
which  they  mistake  for  the  airs  of  inspiration, 
are  absolutely  stupider  than  people  generally 
go,  and  even  without  any  tolerable  abilities  for 
alphabetical  education  1  Many  such  run  ver- 
sifyir.g  about,  and  will  not  try  to  settle  down 
into  an  easy  sedentary  trade,  till  getting  thirsty 
through  perpetual  perspiration,  they  take  to 
drinking,  come  to  you  with  subscription-papers 
for  poetry,  with  a  cock  in  their  eye  that  tells  of 
low  tippling  houses,  and,  accepting  your  half- 
crown,  slander  you  when  melting  it  in  the 
purling  purlieus  of  their  own  donkey-browsed 
Parnassus. 

Can  this  age  be  fairly  charged — we  speak  of 
England  and  Scotland — with  a  shameful  in- 
difl'erence^-or  worse — a  cruel  scorn — or  worse 
still — a  barbarous  persecution  of  young  per- 
sons of  humble  birth,  in  whom  there  may  ap- 
pear a  promise  of  talent,  or  of  genius  ?  Slany 
are  the  scholars  in  whom  their  early  benefac- 
tors have  hail  reason  la  bo  proud  of  lhem>elves, 
while  they  have  been  happy  to  send  their  sons 
to  be  instructed  in  (he  noblest  lore,  by  men 
whose  boyhood  they  had  rescued  from  the 
darkness  of  despair,  and  clothed  it  with  the 
warMith  and  light  of  hope.  And  were  we  to 
speak  of  endowments  in  schools  and  colleges, 
in  which  so  many  fine  scholars  have  been 
broueht  up  from  among  the  humbler  classes, 
who  but  for  them  had  been  bred  to  some  mean 
hantlicrafi,  we  should  show  better  reason  still 
for  believing  that  moral  and  intellectual  worth 
is  not  overlooked,  or  left  to  pine  neglected  in 
obscure  places,  as  it  is  too  much  the  fashion 
with  a  certain  set  of  discontented  declaimers 
to  give  out;  but  that  in  no  other  country  has 
such  provision  been  made  for  the  meritorious 
children  of  the  enlightened  poor  as  in  England. 
But  we  fear  that  the  talent  and  the  genius 
which,  according  to  them,  have  been  so  often 
left  or  sent  to  beggary,  to  the  great  reproach 
even  of  our  national  character,  have  not  been 
of  a  kind  which  a  thoughtful  humanity  would 
in  its  benefactions  have  recognised ;  for  it 
looks  not  with  very  hopeful  eyes  on  mere  ir- 
regular sallies  of  fancy,  least  of  all  when  spurn- 
ins;  prudence  and  propriety,  and  symptomatic 
of  a  mental  constitution  easily  excited,  but 
averse  to  labour,  and  insensible  to  the  delight 
labour  brings  with  it,  when  the  faculties  are  all 
devoted  in  steadfastness  of  purpose  to  the  ac- 
quisition of  knowledge  and  the  attainment  of 
truth. 

'Tis  not  easy  to  know,  seeing  it  so  diflScult 
to  define  it,  whether  this  or  that  youth  who 
thinks  he  has  genius,  has  it  or  not;  the  oolj 


MORNING  MONOLOGUE. 


49 


proof  he  may  have  given  of  it  is  perhaps  a 
few  copies  of  verses,  which  breathe  the  animal 
gladness  of  young  life,  and  are  tinged  with 
tints  of  the  beautiful,  which  joy  itself,  more 
imaginative  than  it  ever  again  will  be,  steals 
from  the  sunset?  but  sound  sense,  and  judg- 
ment, and  taste,  which  is  sense  ahd  judg- 
ment of  all  finest  feelings  and  thoughts,  and 
the  love  of  light  dawning  on  the  intellect,  and 
ability  to  gather  into  knowledge  facts  near  and 
from  afar,  till  the  mind  sees  systems,  and  in 
them  understands  the  phenomena  which,  when 
looked  at  singly,  perplexed  the  pleasure  of  the 
sight — these,  and  aptitudes  and  capacities  and 
powers  such  as  these,  are  indeed  of  promise, 
and  more  than  promise;  they  are  already  per- 
formance, and  justify  in  minds  thus  gified,  and 
in  those  who  watch  their  workings,  hopes  of  a 
wiser  and  happier  future  when  the  boy  shall 
be  a  man. 

Perhaps  too  much  honour,  rather  than  too 
little,  has  been  shown  by  his  age  to  mediocre 
poetry  and  other  works  of  fiction.  A  few 
gleams  of  genius  have  tjivrn  some  writers 
of  little  worth  a  considerable  reputation;  and 
great  waxed  the  pride  of  poetasters.  But  true 
poetry  burst  in  beauty  over  the  land,  and  we 
became  intolerant  of  "false  glitter."  Fresh 
sprang  its  flowers  from  the  "  daedal  earth."  or 
seemed,  they  were  so  surpassinjjiy  beautiful, 
as  if  spring  had  indeed  descended  from  heaven, 
"veiled  in  a  shower  of  shadowing  roses,"  and 
no  longer  Could  we  sutler  yountj  gentlemen  and 
ladies,  treading  among  the  profusion,  to  cfaiher 
the  glorious  scatterings,  and  weaving  them  into 
fantastic  or  even  tasteful  carlands,  to  present 
them  to  us,  as  if  they  had  been  raised  from 
the  seed  of  their  own  genius,  and  entitled 
therefore  "to  bear  their  name  in  the  wild 
woods."  This  flower-gathering,  pretty  pas- 
time though  it  be,  and  altogether  innocent,  fell 
into  disrepute ;  and  then  all  such  florists  be- 
gan to  complain  of  being  neglected,  or  de- 
spised, or  persecuted,  and  their  friends  to  la- 
ment over  their  fate,  the  fate  of  all  genius,  "  in 
amorous  ditiies  all  a  summer's  day." 

Besides  the  living  poets  of  highest  rank, 
are  there  not  many  whose  claims  to  join  the 
sacred  band  have  been  allowed,  because  their 
lips,  too,  have  sometimes  been  touched  with  a 
fire  from  heaven  1  Second-rate  indeed!  Ay, 
well  for  those  who  are  third,  fourth,  or  fifth- 
rate — knowing  where  sit  Homer,  Shakspeare, 
and  Milton.  Round  about  Parnassus  run  many 
parallel  roads,  with  forests  "of  cedar  and 
branching  palm  between,"  overshadowing  the 
sunshine  on  each  magnificent  level  with  a 
sense  of  something  more  sublime  still  nearer 
the  forked  summit;  and  each  band,  so  that 
they  be  not  ambitious  overmuch,  in  their  own 
region  may  wander  or  repose  in  grateful  bliss. 
Thousands  look  up  with  envy  from  "  the  low- 
lying  fields  of  the  beautiful  land"  immediately 
without  the  line  that  goes  wavingly  asweep 
round  the  base  of  the  holy  mountain,  separating 
it  from  the  common  earth.  What  clamour  and 
what  din  from  the  excluded  crowd  !  Many  are 
heard  there  to  whom  nature  has  been  kind,  but 
they  have  not  yet  learned  "  to  know  them- 
selves," or  they  would  retire,  but  not  afar  off, 
and  in  silence  adore.  And  so  they  do  erelong, 
7 


and  are  happy  in  the  sight  of  "  the  beauty  still 
more  beauteous"  revealed  to  their  fine  percep- 
tions, though  to  them  was  not  given  the  faculty 
that  by  combining  in  spiritual  passion  creates. 
But  what  has  thither  brought  the  self-deceived, 
who  will  not  be  convinced  of  their  delusion, 
even  were  Homer  or  Milton's  very  self  to 
frown  on  them  with  eyes  no  longer  dim,  but 
angry  in  their  brightness  like  lowering  stars  1 

But  we  must  beware — perhaps  too  late — of 
growing  unintelligible,  and  ask  you.  in  plainer 
tefms,  if  you  do  not  think  that  by  far  the  great- 
est number  of  all  those  who  raise  an  outcry 
against  the  injustice  of  the  world  to  men  of 
genius,  are  persons  of  the  meanest  abilities, 
who  have  all  their  lives  been  foolishly  fighting 
with  their  stars  1  Their  demons  have  not 
whispered  to  them  "have  a  taste,"  but  "you 
have  genius,"  and  the  world  gives  the  demons 
the  lie.  Thence  anger,  spife,  rancour,  and 
envy  eat  their  hearts,  and  they  "  rail  against 
the  Lord's  anointed."  They  set  up  idols  of 
clay,  and  fall  down  and  worship  them — or  idols 
of  brass,  more  worthless  than  clay ;  or  they 
perversely,  and  in  hatred,  not  in  love,  pretend 
reverence  for  the  Fair  and  Good,  because,  for- 
sooth, placed  bj'  man's  ingratitude  too  far  in 
the  shade,  whereas  man's  pity  has,  in  deep 
compassion,  removed  the  objects  of  their  love, 
because  of  their  imperfections  not  blameless, 
back  in  among  that  veiling  shade,  that  their 
beauty  might  still  be  visible,  while  their  de- 
formities were  hidden  in  "  a  dim  religious 
light." 

Let  none  of  the  sons  or  daughters  of  genius 
hearken  to  such  outcry  but  with  contempt — 
and  at  all  times  with  suspicion,  when  they  find 
themselves  the  objects  of  such  lamentations. 
The  world  is  not — at  least  does  not  wish  to  be, 
an  unkind,  ungenerous,  and  unjust  world 
Many  who  think  themselves  neglected,  are  far 
more  thousht  of  than  they  suppose;  just  as 
many,  who  imagine  the  world  ringing  with  their 
name,  are  in  the  world's  ears  nearly  anony- 
mous. Only  one  edition  or  two  of  your  poems 
have  sold — but  is  it  not  pretty  well  that  five 
hundred  or  a  thousand  copies  have  been  read, 
or  glanced  over,  or  looked  at,  or  skimmed,  or 
skipped,  or  fondled,  or  petted,  or  tossed  aside, 
"between  malice  and  true  love,"  by  ten  times 
that  number  of  j'our  fellow-creatures,  not  one 
of  whom  ever  saw  your  face ;  while  many  mil- 
lions of  men,  nearly  your  equals,  and  not  a  few 
millions  your  superiors  far,  have  contentedly 
dropt  into  the  grave,  at  the  close  of  a  long  life, 
without  having  once  "  invoked  the  Muse,"  and 
who  would  have  laughed  in  your  face  had  you 
talked  to  them,  even  in  their  greatest  glee, 
about  their  genius. 

There  is  a  glen  in  the  Highlands  (dearly  be- 
loved Southrons,  call  on  us,  on  j-our  way 
through  Edinburgh,  and  we  shall  delight  to 
instruct  you  how  to  walk  our  mountains) 
called  Glencro — very  unlike  Glenco.  A  good 
road  winds  up  the  steep  ascent,  and  at  the 
summit  there  is  a  stone  seat,  on  which  you 
read,  "  Rest  and  be  thankful."  You  do  so — and 
are  not  a  little  proud — if  pedestrians — of  your 
achievement.  Looking  up,  you  see  cliffs  high 
above  your  head,  (not  the  Cobbler,)  and  in  the 
clear  sky,  as  far  above  them,  a  balanced  bird. 
E 


50 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


You  envy  him  his  seemingly  motionless  wings, 
and  wonder  at  his  air-supporters.  Down  he 
darts,  or  aside  he  shoots,  or  right  up  he  soars, 
and  you  wish  you  were  an  Eagle.  You  have 
reached  Rest-and-be-thankful,  yet  rest  you  will 
not,  and  thankful  you  will  not  be,  and  you  scorn 
the  mean  inscription,  which  many  a  worthier 
wayfarer  has  blessed,  while  sitting  on  that 
stone  he  has  said,  "  give  us  this  day  our  daily 
bread,"  eat  his  crust,  and  then  walked  away 
contented  down  to  Cairndow.  Just  so  it  has 
been  with  you  sitting  at  your  appointed  place 
— pretty  high  up — on  the  road  to  the  summit 
of  the  Biforked  Hill.  You  look  up  and  see 
Byron — there    "sitting  where  you  may  not 


soar," — and  wish  you  were  a  great  Poet.  But 
you  are  no  more  a  great  Poet  than  an  Eagle 
eight  feet  from  wing-tip  to  wing-tip — and  will 
not  rest-and-be-thankful  that  you  are  a  man 
and  a  Christian.  Nay,  you  are  more,  an  author 
of  no  mean  repute;  and  your  prose  is  allowed 
to  be  excellent,  belter  far  than  the  best  para- 
graph in  this  our  Morning  Monologue.  But 
you  are  sick  of  walking,  and  nothing  will  sa- 
tisfy you  but  to  fly.  Be  contented,  as  we  are, 
with  feet,  and  weep  not  for  wings ;  and  let  us 
take  comfort  together  from  a  cheering  quota- 
tion from  the  philosophic  Graj- — 

"For  they  that  crrep,  and  they  that  fly. 
Just  end  where  tbey  began." 


THE  FIELD  OF  FLOWERS. 


A  May-jiohn-ixb  on  Ulswater  and  the  banks 
of  Ulswater — commingled  earth  and  heaven  ! 
Spring  is  many-coloured  as  Autumn  ;  but  now 
Joy  scatters  the  hues  daily  brightening  into 
greener  life,  then  Melancholy  dropt  them  daily 
dimming  into  yellower  death.  The  fear  of 
Winter  then — but  now  the  hope  of  Summer; 
and  Nature  rings  with  hymns  hailing  the  visi- 
ble advent  of  the  perfect  year.  If  for  a  mo- 
ment the  woods  are  silent,  it  is  but  to  burst 
forth  anew  into  louder  song.  The  rain  is  over 
and  gone — but  the  showery  sky  speaks  in  the 
streams  on  a  hundred  hills;  and  the  wide 
mountain  gloom  opens  its  heart  to  the  sun- 
shine, that  on  many  a  dripping  precipice  burns 
like  fire.  Nothing  seems  inanimate.  The 
very  clouds  and  their  shadows  look  alive — the 
trees,  never  dead,  are  wide-awakened  from 
their  sleep — families  of  flowers  are  frequentin? 
all  the  dewy  places — old  walls  are  splendid 
with  the  light  of  lichens — and  birch-crowned 
cliffs  up  among  the  coves  send  down  their  fine 
fragrance  to  the  Lake  on  every  bolder  breath 
that  whitens  with  breaking  wavelets  the  blue 
of  its  breezy  bosom.  Nor  mute  the  voice  of 
man.  The  shepherd  is  whooping  on  the  hill 
— the  ploughman  calling  .to  his  team  some- 
where among  the  furrows  in  some  small  late 
field,  won  from  the  woods ;  and  you  hear  the 
laughter  and  the  echoes  of  the  laughter — one 
sound— of  children  busied  in  half-work,  half- 
play;  for  what  else  in  vernal  sunshine  is  the 
occupation  of  young  rustic  life  1  Tis  no 
Arcadia— no  golden  age.  But  a  lovelier  scene 
-in  the  midst  of  all  its  grandeur— is  not  in 
merry  and  majestic  England;  nor  did  the  hills 
of  this  earth  ever  circumscribe  a  pleasanter 
dwelling  for  a  nobler  peasantrv,  than  these 
Cumbrian  ranges  of  rocks  and  pastures,  where 
the  raven  croaks  in  his  own  region,  unre- 
garded in  theirs  by  the  fleecy  flocks.  How 
beautiful  the  Church  Tower! 

On  a  knoll  not  far  from  the  shore,  and  not 
nigh  above  the  water,  yet  bv  an  especial  feli- 
cty  of^Aaze  gently  commanding  all  that  reach 


of  the  Lake  with  all  its  ranges  of  mountains — 
every  single  tree,  every  grove,  and  all  the 
woods  seeming  to  show  or  to  conceal  the  scene 
at  ihe  bidding  of  the  Spirit  of  Beauty — reclined 
two  Figures — the  one  almost  rustic,  but  vene- 
rable in  the  simplicity  of  old  age — the  other 
no  longer  young,  but  still  in  the  prime  of  life — 
and  though  plainly  apparelled,  wilh  form  and 
bearing  such  as  are  pointed  out  in  cities, 
because  belonging  to  distinguished  men.  The 
old  man  behaved  towards  him  with  deference 
but  not  humility;  and  between  them  too — in 
many  things  unlike — it  was  clear  even  from 
their  silence  that  there  was  Friendship. 

A  little  way  ofl",  and  sometimes  almost  run- 
ning, now  up  and  now  down  the  slopes  and 
hollows,  was  a  girl  about  eight  years  old — 
whether  beautiful  or  not  you  could  not  know, 
C>r  her  face  was  either  half-hidden  in  golden 
hair,  or  when  she  tossed  the  tresses  from  her 
brow,  it  was  so  bright  in  the  sunshine  that  you 
saw  no  features,  only  a  gleam  of  joy.  Now 
she  was  chasing  the  butterflies,  not  to  hurt 
them,  but  to  get  a  nearer  sight  of  iheir  delicate 
gauze  wings — the  first  that  had  come — she 
wondered  whence — to  waver  and  wanton  for  a 
little  while  in  the  spring-sunshine,  and  then, 
she  felt,  as  wondrously.  one  and  all  as  by  con- 
sent, to  vanish.  And  now  she  stooped  as  if  to 
pull  some  little  wild-flower,  her  hand  for  a 
moment  withheld  by  a  loving  sense  of  its 
loveliness,  but  ever  and  anon  adding  some  new 
colour  to  the  blended  bloom  intended  to  glad- 
den her  father's  eyes — though  the  happy  child 
knew  full  well,  and  sometimes  wept  to  know, 
that  she  herself  had  his  entire  heart.  Yet 
glidinc,  or  tripping,  or  dancing  along,  she 
touched  not  with  fair)'  foot  one  while  clover- 
flower  on  which  she  saw  working  the  silent 
bee.  Her  father  looked  too  oflen  sad,  and  she 
feared — though  what  it  was,  she  imagined  not 
even  in  dreams — that  some  great  misery  must 
have  befallen  him  before  they  came  to  live  in 
the  glen.  And  such,  too,  she  had  heard  from 
a  chance  whisper,  was  the  belief  of  their  neigh 


THE  FIELD  OF  FLOWERS. 


M 


bours.  But  momentary  the  shadows  on  the 
light  of  childhood  !  Nor  was  she  insensible  to 
her  own  beauty,  that  with  the  innocence  it  en- 
shrined combined  to  make  her  happy ;  and  first 
met  her  own  eyes  every  morning,  when  most 
beautiful,  awakening  from  the  hushed  awe  of 
her  prayers.  She  was  clad  in  russet,  like  a 
cottager's  child  ;  but  her  air  spoke  of  finer 
breeding  than  may  be  met  with  among  those 
mountains — though  natural  grace  accompanies 
there  many  a  maiden  going  with  her  pitcher  to 
the  well — and  gentle  blood  and  old  flows  there 
in  the  veins  of  now  humble  men — who,  but  for 
the  decay  of  families  once  high,  might  have 
lived  in  halls,  now  dilapidated,  and  scarcely 
distinguished  through  masses  of  ivy  from  the 
circumjacent  rocks ! 

The  child  stole  close  behind  her  father,  and 
kissing  his  cheek,  said,  "  Were  there  ever  such 
lovely  flowers  seen  on  Ulswater  before,  father? 
I  do  not  believe  that  they  will  ever  die."  And 
she  put  them  in  his  breast.  Not  a  smile  came 
to  his  countenance — no  look  of  love — no  faint 
recognition — no  gratitude  for  the  gift  which  at 
other  limes  might  haply  have  drawn  a  tear. 
She  stood  abashed  in  the  sternness  of  his  eyes, 
which,  though  fixed  on  her,  seemed  to  see  her 
^lot ;  and  feeling  that  her  glee  was  mistimed — 
for  with  such  gloom  she  was  not  unfamiliar — 
the  child  fell  as  if  her  own  happiness  had  been 
sin,  and,  retiring  into  a  glade  among  the  broom, 
sat  down  and  wept. 

"  Poor  wretch,  belter  far  that  she  never  had 
been  born  !" 

The  old  man  looked  on  his  friend  with  com- 
passion, but  with  no  surprise;  and  only  said, 
"God  will  dry  up  her  tears." 

These  few  simple  words,  uttered  in  a  solemn 
voice,  but  without  one  fone  of  reproach, 
seemed  somewhat  to  calm  the  other's  trouble, 
who  first  looking  towards  the  spot  where  his 
child  was  sobbing  to  herself,  though  he  heard 
it  not,  and  then  looking  up  to  heaven,  ejacu- 
lated for  her  sake  a  broken  prayer.  He  then 
would  have  fain  called  her  to  him;  but  he  was 
ashamed  that  even  she  should  see  him  in  such 
a  passion  of  grief — and  the  old  man  went  to 
her  of  his  own  accord,  and  bade  her,  as  from 
her  father,  again  to  take  her  pastime  among 
the  flowers.  Soon  was  she  dancing  in  her 
happiness  as  before;  and,  that  her  father  might 
hear  she  was  obeying  him,  singing  a  song. 

"For  five  years  every  Sabbath  have  I  at- 
tended divine  service  in  your  chapel — yet  dare 
I  not  call  myself  a  Christian.  I  have  prayed 
for  faith — ncr,  wretch  that  I  am,  am  I  an  un- 
believer. But  I  fear  tc  /ling  myself  at  the  foot 
of  the  cross.  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sin- 
ner!" 

The  old  man  opened  not  his  lips  ;  for  he  felt 
that  there  was  about  to  be  made  some  confes- 
sion. Yet  he  doubled  not  that  the  sufferer 
had  been  more  sinned  against  than  sinning; 
for  the  goodness  of  the  stranger — so  called 
still  after  five  years'  residence  among  the  moun- 
tains— was'known  in  many  a  vale — and  the 
Pastor  knew  that  charity  covcreth  a  multitude 
of  sins — and  even  as  a  moral  virtue  prepares 
the  heart  for  heaven.  So  sacred  a  thing  is 
solace  in  this  woful  world. 
"  We  have  walked  together,  many  hundred 


times,  for  great  part  of  a  day,  by  ourselves 
two,  over  long  tracts  of  uninhabited  moors, 
and  yet  never  once  from  my  lips  escaped  one 
word  about  my  fates  or  fortunes — so  frozen 
was  the  secret  in  my  heart.  Often  have  I 
heard  the  sound  of  your  voice,  as  if  it  were 
that  of  the  idle  wind ;  and  often  the  words  I 
did  hear  seemed,  in  the  confusion,  to  have  no 
relation  to  us,  to  be  strange  syllablings  in  the 
wilderness,  as  from  the  hauntings  of  some  evil 
spirit  instigating  me  to  self-destruction." 

"  I  saw  that  your  life  was  oppressed  by  some 
perpetual  burden;  but  God  darkened  not  your 
mind  while  j'our  heart  was  disturbed  so  griev- 
ously ;  and  well  pleased  were  we  all  to  think, 
that  in  caring  so  kindly  for  the  griefs  of  others, 
you  might  come  at  last  to  forget  your  own ;  or 
if  that  were  impossible,  to  feel,  that  with  the 
alleviations  of  time,  and  sympathy,  and  re- 
ligion, yours  was  no  more  than  the  common 
lot  of  sorrow." 

They  rose — and  continued  to  walk  in  silence 
— but  not  apart — up  and  down  that  small  silvan 
enclosure  overlooked  but  by  rocks.  The  child 
saw  her  father's  distraction — no  unusual  sight 
to  her;  yet  on  each  recurrence  as  mournful 
and  full  of  fear  as  if  seen  for  the  first  time — 
and  pretended  to  be  playing  aloof  with  her 
face  pale  in  tears. 

"  That  child's  mother  is  not  dead.  Where 
she  is  now  I  know  not — perhaps  in  a  foreign 
country  hiding  her  guilt  and  her  shame.  All 
say  that  a  lovelier  child  was  never  seen  than 
that  wretch — God  bless  her — how  beautiful  is 
the  poor  creature  now  in  her  happiness  sing- 
ing over  her  flowers !  Just  such  another  must 
her  mother  have  been  at  her  age.  She  is  now 
an  outcast — and  an  adulteress." 

The  pastor  turned  away  his  face,  for  in  the 
silence  he  heard  groans,  and  the  hollow  voice 
again  spoke : — 

"Through  many  dismal  days  and  nights 
have  I  striven  to  forgive  her,  but  never  for 
many  hours  together  have  I  been  enabled  to 
repent  my  curse.  For  on  my  knees  I  implored 
God  to  curse  her — her  head — her  eyes — her 
breast — her  body — mind,  heart,  and  soul — and 
that  she  might  go  down  a  loathsome  leper  to 
the  grave." 

«  Remember  what  He  said  to  the  woman — 
*  Go,  and  sin  no  more  !'  " 

"  The  words  have  haunted  me  all  up  and 
down  the  hills — his  words  and  mine;  but  mine 
have  always  sounded  liker  justice  at  last — for 
my  nature  was  created  human — and  human 
are  all  the  passions  that  pronounced  that  holy 
or  unholy  curse!" 

"Yet  you  would  not  curse  her  now — were 
she  laying  here  at  your  feet — or  if  you  were 
standing  by  her  death-bed  1" 

"Lying  here  at  my  feet!  Even  here — on 
this  very  spot — not  blasted,  but  green  through 
all  the  year — within  the. shelter  of  these  two 
rocks — she  did  lie  at  my  feet  in  her  beauty — 
and  as  I  thought  her  innocence — my  own  hap  ■ 
py  bride !  Hither  I  brought  her  to  be  blest- 
and  blest  I  was  even  up  to  the  measure  of  my 
misery.  This  world  is  hell  to  me  now— but 
then  it  was  heaven  !" 

"  These  awful  names  are  of  ihe  mybterie^- 
beyond  the  grave." 


62 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


"  Hearme  and  judge.  Shewas  an  orphan  ;  all 
her  father's  and  mother's  relations  were  dead, 
but  a  few  who  were  very  poor.  .  I  married  her, 
and  secured  her  life  against  this  heartless  and 
wicked  world.  That  child  was  born— and 
while  it  grew  like  a  floAver — she  left  it — and 
its  father — we  who  loved  her  beyond  light  and 
life,  and  would  have  given  up  both  for  her 
sake." 

"  And  have  not  yet  found  heart  to  forgive 
her — miserable  as  she  needs  must  be— seeing 
she  has  been  a  great  sinner  !" 

"  Who  forgives  1  The  father  his  profligate 
son,  or  disobedient  daughter  ?  No  ;  he  disin- 
herits his  first-born,  and  suffers  him  to  perish,, 
perhaps  by  an  ignominious  death.  He  leaves 
his  only  daughter  to  drag  out  her  days  in 
penury — a  widow  with  orphans.  The  world 
may  condemn,  but  is  silent ;  he  goes  to  church 
every  Sabbath,  but  no  preacher  denounces 
punishment  on  the  unrelenting,  the  unforgiving 
parent.  Yet  how  easily  might  he  have  taken 
them  both  back  to  his  heart,  and  loved  them 
better  than  ever!  But  she  poisoned  my  cup 
of  life  when  it  seemed  to  overllow  with  hea- 
ven. Had  God  dashed  it  from  my  lips,  I  could 
have  borne  my  doom.  But  with  her  own  hand 
which  I  had  clasped  at  the  altar — and  with  our 
Lucy  at  her  knees — she  gave  me  that  loath- 
some draught  of  shame  and  sorrow ; — I  drank 
it  to  the  dregs — and  it  is  burning  all  through 
my  being — now — as  if  it  had  been  hell-firc 
from  the  hands  of  a  fiend  in  the  shape  of  an 
angel.  In  what  page  of  the  New  Testament 
am  I  told  to  forgive  her?  Let  me  see  the  verse 
— and  then  shall  I  knoAV  that  Christianity  is 
an  imposture;  for  the  voice  of  God  within  me 
— the  conscience  which  is  his  still  small  voice 
— commands  me  never  from  my  memory  to 
obliterate  that  curse — never  to  forgive  her, 
and  her  wickedness — not  even  if  we  should 
see  each  other's  shadows  in  a  future  state, 
after  the  day  of  judgment." 

His  countenance  gr?w  ghastly — and  stagger- 
ing to  a  stone,  he  sat  down  and  eyed  the  skies 
with  a  vacant  stare,  like  a  man  whom  dreams 
carry  about  in  his  sleep.  His  face  was  like  ashes 
— and  he  gasped  like  one  about  to  fall  into  a  fit. 
"  Bring  me  water" — and  the  old  man  motioned 
on  the  child,  who,  giving  ear  to  him  for  a  mo- 
ment, flew  away  to  the  Lake-side  with  an  urn 
she  had  brought  with  her  for  flowers ;  and 
held  it  to  her  father's  lips.  His  eyes  saw  it 
not; — there  was  her  sweet  pale  face  all  wet 
with  tears,  almost  touching  his  own — her  in- 
nocent mouth  breathiiiig  that  pure  balm  that 
seems  to  a  father's  soul  to  be  inhaled  from  the 
bowers  of  paradise.  He  took  her  into  his  bosom 
— and  kissed  her  dewy  eyes — and  begged  her 
to  cease  her  sobbing— to  smile— to  laugh— to 
sing— to  dance  away  into  the  sunshine— /o  l,c 
happy!  And  Lucy  afraid,  not  of  her  father, 
but  of  his  kindne&s-jfor  the  simple  creature 
was  not  able  to  understand  his  wild  utterance 
of  blessings— returned  to  the  glade  but  not  to 
her  pastime,  and  couching  like  a  fawn  among 
the  fern,  kept  her  eyes  on  her  father,  and  leH 
her  flowers  to  fade  unheeded  beside  her  empty 
urn. 

"  Unintelligible  mystery  of  wickedness  ! 
That  child  was  just  three  years  old  the  very 


day  it  was  forsaken — she  abandoned  it  and 
me  on  its  birih-day!  Twice  had  that  day 
been  observed  by  us — as  the  sweetest — the 
most  sacred  of  holydays ;  and  now  that  it  had 
again  come  round — but  I  not  presenj-t-for  I 
w'&s  on  foreign  service — thus  did  she  observe 
it — and  disappeared  with  her  paramour.  It 
so  happened  that  we  went  that  day  into  action 
— and  I  committed  her  and  our  child  to  the 
mercy  of  God  in  fervent  prayers;  for  love 
made  me  religious — and  for  their  sakes  I 
feared  though  I  shunned  not  death.  I  lay  all 
night  among  the  wounded  on  the  field  of  battle 
— and  it  was  a  severe  frost.  Pain  kept  me 
from  sleep,  but  I  saw  them  as  distinctly  as  in 
a  dream — the  mother  lying  with  her  child  in 
her  bosom  in  our  own  bed.  Was  not  thai 
vision  mockery  enough  to  drive  me  mad  ? 
After  a  few  weeks  a  letter  came  to  me  from 
herscl'' — and  I  kissed  it  and  pressed  it  to  my 
heart ;  for  no  black  seal  was  there — and  I 
knew  that  little  Lucy  was  alive.  No  meaning 
for  a  while  seemed  to  be  in  the  words — and 
then  thoy  began  to  blacken  into  ghastly  cha- 
racters— till  at  last  I  eathercd  from  the  horrid 
revelation  that  she  was  sunk  in  sin  and 
shame,  steeped  for  evermore  in  utmost  pollu- 
tion. ' 

"  A  friend  was  with  me — and  I  pave  it  to 
him  to  read — for  in  my  anguish  at  first  I  felt 
no  shame — and  I  watched  his  face  as  he  read 
it,  that  I  might  see  corroboration  of  the  incre- 
dilile  truth,  which  continued  to  look  like  false- 
hood, even  while  it  pierced  my  heart  with 
auonizing  pangs.  'It  may  be  a  fi>rgpry,'  was 
all  he  could  utter — aHer  long  agitation  ;  but 
the  shape  of  each  letter  was  tuo  familiar  to 
my  eyes — the  way  in  which  the  paper  was 
folded — and  I  knew  my  doom  was  sealed. 
Hours  must  have  ppssed,  for  the  room  grew 
dark — and  I  asked  him  to  leave  me  for  the 
night.  He  kissed  my  forehead — for  we  had 
been  as  brothers.  I  saw  him  next  morning — 
dead^-cut  nearly  in  two — yet  had  he  left  a 
paper  for  me,  written  an  hnnr  before  he  fell, 
so  filled  with  holiest  friendship,  that  oh!  how 
even  in  my  agony  I  wept  for  him,  now  but  a 
lump  of  cold  clay  and  blood,  and  envied  him 
at  the  same  time  a  soldier's  grave! 

"And  has  the  time  indeed  come  that  lean 
thus  speak  calmly  of  all  that  horror!  The 
body  was  brought  into  my  room,  and  it  lay 
all  day  and  all  night  close  to  my  bed.  But 
false  was  I  to  all  our  life-long  friendship — 
and  almost  with  indifference  I  looked  upon 
the  corpse.  Momentary  starts  of  affection 
seized  me — but  I  cared  little  or  nothing  for 
[  the  death  of  him,  the  tender  and  the  true,  the 
j  crentle  and  the  brave,  the  pious  and  the  noble- 
hearted;  my  anguish  was  all  for  her,  the  cruel 
and  the  fiiithless,  dead  to  honour,  to  religion 
dead— dead  to  all  the  sanctities  of  nature — for 
her,  and  for  her  alone,  I  suflTered  all  ghastliest 
agonies — nor  any  comfort  came  to  me  in  my 
despair,  from  the  conviction  that  she  was 
worthless;  for  desperately  wicked  as  she  had 
shown  herself  to  be — oh  !  crowding  came 
back  upon  me  all  our  hours  of  happiness — 
all  her  sweet  smiles — all  her  loving  looks- 
all  her  afleciionate  words — all  her  conjugal 
and  maternal  tendernesses ;  and  the  loss  of 


THE  FIELD  OF  FLOWERS. 


53 


all  that  bliss — the  change  of  it  all  into  strange, 
sudden,   shameful,    and    everlasting    misery, 
smote  me  till  I  swooned,  and  was  delivered 
up  to  a  trance  in  which  the  rueful  reality  was 
liiixed  up  with  fantasms  more  horrible  than 
man's  mind  can  suffer  out  of  the  hell  of  sleep  ! 
"  Wretched  coward   that  I  was  to  outlive 
that  night!     But   my  mind  was  weak   from 
great  loss  of  blood — and  the  blow  so  stunned 
me  that  I  had  not  strength  of  resolution   to 
die.     I  might   have  torn  off  the  bandages — 
for  nobody  watched  me — and  my  wounds  were 
thought  mortal.     But  the  love  of  life  had  not 
welled  out  with  all  those  vital  streams;  and 
as  I  began  to  recover,  another  passion  took 
possession   of  me — and   I   vowed  that   there 
should  be  atonement  and  revenge.     I  was  not 
obscure.     My  dishonour  was  known  through 
the  whole  army.     Not  a  tent — not  a  hut — in 
which   my  name  was  not  bandied  about — a 
jest  in  the  mouths  of  profligate   poltroons — 
pronounced   with  pity  by  the  compassionate 
brave.     I  had  commanded  my  men  with  pride. 
No  need  had  I  ever  had  to  be  ashamed  when 
I  looked  on  our  colours ;  but  no  wretch  led 
out  to  execution   for  desertion  or  cowardice 
ever  shrunk  from  the  sun,  and  from  the  sight 
of  human    faces    arrayed   around   him,    with 
more  shame  and  horror  than  did  I  when,  on 
my  way  to  a  transport,  I  came  suddenly  on 
my  ()wn  corps,  marching  to  music  as  if  they 
were  taking  up  a  position  in  the  line  of  battle 
— as   they  had  often  done   with  me  at  their 
head — all  sternly  silent  before  an  approaching 
storm  of  fire.    What  brought  them  there?    To 
do   mc  honour!     Me,  smeared   with   infamy, 
and  ashamed  to  lift  my  eyes  from  the  mire. 
Honour   had   been    the    idol   I   worshipped — 
alas !  too,  too  passionately  far — and  now  I  lay 
in  my  litter  like  a  slave  sold  to  stripes — and 
heard  as  if  a  legion  of  demons  were  mocking 
mc  and  with  loud  and  long  huzzas;  and  then 
a  confused  murmur  of  blessings  on  our  noble 
commander,  so  they  called  me — me.  despica- 
ble in  my  own  esteem — scorned — insulted — 
forsaken — mc,  who  could  not  bind  to  minif  the 
bosom  that  for  years  had  touched  it — a  wretch 
so  poor  in  power  over  a  woman's  heart,  that 
no  sooner  had  I  left  her  to  her  own  thoughts 
than  she  felt  that  she  had  never  loved  me, 
and,  opening  her  fair  breast  to  a  new-born 
bliss,  sacrificed  me  without  remorse — nor  could 
bear  to  think  of  me  any  more  as  her  husband 
— not  even  for  sake  of  that  child  whom  I  knew 
she   loved — for  no  hypocrite  was    she   there; 
and  oh  !  lost  creature  though  she  was — even 
now  I  wonder  over  that  unaccountable  deser- 
tion— and  much  she  must  have  suffered  from 
the  image  of  that  small  bed,  beside  which  she 
used  to  sit  for  hours,  perfectly  happy  from  the 
sight  of  that  face  which  I  too  so  often  blessed 
in   her  hearing,  because  it  was  so   like  her 
own!     Where  is  my  child  1     Have  I  fright- 
ened her  away  into  the  wood  by  my  unfather- 
Iv  looks  ?     She  too  will  come  to  hate   me — 
oh!  see  yonder  her  face  and  her  figure  like  a 
fairy's,   gliding   through   among   the   broom ! 
Sorrow   has  no  business  with  her — nor  she 
with  sorrow.     Yet — even  her  how  often  have 
I  made  ween!     All  the  unhappincss  she  has 


I  but  leave  her  alone  to  herself  in  her  affec- 
tionate innocence,  the  smile  that  always  lies 
on  her  face  when  she  is  asleep  would  remain 
there— only  brighter— all  the  time  her  eyes 
are  awake ;  but  I  dash  it  away  by  my  unhal- 
lowed harshness,  and  people  looking  on  her 
in  her  trouble,  wonder  to  think  how  sad  can. 
be  the  countenance  even  of  a  little  child.  0 
God  of  mercy !  what  if  she  were  to  die  !" 

"She  will  not  die — she  will  live,"  said  the 
pitying  pastor — "  and  many  happy  years — my 
son — are  3-et  in  store  even  for  you — sorely  as 
you  have  been  tried ;  for  it  is  not  in  nature 
that  your  wretchedness  can  endure  for  ever. 
She  is  in  herself  all-sufficient  for  a  father's 
happiness.  You  prayed  just  now  that  the  God 
of  Mercy  would  spare  her  life — and  has  he  not 
spared  it?  Tender  flower  as  she  seems,  yet 
how  full  of  Life  !  Let  not  then  your  gratitude 
to  Heaven  be  barren  in  your  heart;  but  let  it 
produce  there  resignation — if  need  be,  contri- 
tion— and,  above  all,  forgiveness." 

"  Yes !  I  had  a  hope  to  live  for — mangled  as 
I  was  in  body,  and  racked  in  mind — a  hope 
that  was  a  faith — and  bitter-sweet  it  was  in 
imagined  foretaste  of  fruition — the  hope  and 
the  faith  of  revenge.  They  said  he  would  not 
aim  at  my  life.  But  what  was  that  to  me  who 
thirsted  for  his  blood  ?  Was  he  to  escape 
death,  because  he  dared  not  wound  bone,  or 
flesh,  or  muscle  of  mine,  seeing  that  the  as- 
sassin had  already  stabbed  my  soul?  Satis- 
faction !  I  tell  you  that  I  was  for  revenge.  JJfot 
that  his  blood  could  wipe  out  the  stain  with 
which  my  name  was  imbrued,  but  let  it  be 
mixed  with  the  mould;  and  he  who  invaded 
my  marriage-bed — and  hallowed  was  it  by 
every  generous  passion  that  ever  breathed 
upon  woman's  breast — let  him  fall  down  in 
convulsions,  and  vomit  out  his  heart's  bloodf 
at  once  in  expiation  of  his  guilt,  and  in  retri- 
buiiou  dealt  out  to  him  by  the  hand  of  him 
whom  he  had  degraded  in  the  eyes  of  the  whole 
world  beneath  the  condition  even  of  a  felon, 
and  delivered  over  in  my  misery  to  contempt 
and  scorn.  I  found  him  out; — there  he  was 
before  me — in  all  that  beauty  by  women  so 
beloved — graceful  as  Apollo;  and  with  a 
haughty  air,  as  if  proud  of  an  achievement 
that  adorned  his  name,  he  saluted  me — her  hiis- 
Ixmd — on  the  field, — and  let  the  wind  play  with 
his  raven  tresses — his  curled  love-locks — and 
then  presented  himself  to  my  aim  in  an  attitude 
a  statuary  would  have  admired.  I  shot  him 
through  the  heart." 

The  good  old  man  heard  the  dreadful  words 
with  a  shudder — yet  they  had  come  to  his  ears 
not  unexpectedly,  for  the  speaker's  aspect  had 
graduallj'  been  growing  black  with  wrath,  long 
before  he  ended  in  an  avowal  of  murder.  Nor, 
on  ceasing  his  wild  words  and  distracted  de- 
meanour, did  it  seem  that  his  heart  was  touched 
with  an}'  remorse.  His  eyes  retained  their 
savage  glare — his  teeth  were  clenched — and 
he  feasted  on  his  crime. 

"  Nothing  but  a  full  faith  in  Divine  Revela- 
tion," solemnly  said  his  aged  friend,  "can  sub- 
due the  evil  passions  of  our  nature,  or  enable 
conscience  itself  to  see  and  repent  of  sin 
Your  wrongs  were  indeed  great — but  without 


ever  known  "has  all  come  from  me  ;  and  would  |  a  change  wrought  in  all  your  spirit,  alas  !  my 

e3 


54 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


son !  you  cannot  hope  to  see  the  kingdom  of 
heaven." 

"  Who  dares  to  condemn  the  deed  1     He  de- 
served death — and  whence  was  doom  to  come 
but  from  me  the  Avenger?     I  took  his  life — 
but   once  I  saved  it.     I  bore   him   from   the 
battlements  of  a  fort  stormed  in  vain — after 
■we  had  all  been  blown  up  by  the  springing  of 
a  mine;  and  from  bayonets  that  had  drunk 
my  blood  as   well  as  his — and  his  widowed 
mother  blessed  me  as  the  saviour  of  her  son.   I 
told  my  wife  to  receive  him  as  a  brother — and 
for  my  sake  to  feel  towards  him  a  sister's  love. 
Who  shall  speak  of  temptation — or  frailty — or 
infatuation  to  me  1     Let  the  fools  hold  their 
peace.    His   wounds   became   dearer   to   her 
abandoned  heart  than  mine   had  ever  been  ; 
yet  had  her  cheek  lain  many  a  night  on  the 
scars  that  seamed  this  breast — for  I  was  not 
backward  in  battle,  and  our  place  was  in  the  j 
van.    I  was  no  coward,  that  she  who  loved  [ 
heroism  in  him  should  have  dishonoured  her 
husband.     True,   he   was   younger   by   some  | 
years  than  me — and  God  had  given  him  per- 
nicious beauty — and  she  was  young,  too — oh  !  j 
the  brightest  of  all  mortal  creatures  the  day  \ 
she  became  my  bride — nor  less   bright  with 
that  baby  at  her  bosom — a  matron  in  girlhood's  I 
resplendent  spring  !   Is  youth  a  plea  for  wicked- 1 
ness?     And  was  I  old?     I,  who  in  spite  of  all  [ 
I  have  suffered,  feel  the  vital  blood  yet  boiling 
as  to  a  furnace;  but  cut  off  fi>r  ever  by  her 
crime  from  fame  and  glory — and  fro;n  a  soldier  [ 
in  his  proud  career,  covered  with  honour  in  . 
the  eyes  of  all  my  countrymen,  changed  in  an 
hour  into  an   outlawed   and  nameless  slave. 
My  name  has  been  borne  by  a  race  of  heroes  j 
— the  blood  in  my  veins  has  flowed  down  a 
long  line  of  illustrious   ancestors — and   here  ' 
am  I  now — a   hidden,  disguised   hypocrite —  j 
dwelling    among    peasants — and    afraid — ay, 
afraid,  because  ashamed,  to  lift  my  eyes  freely  , 
from  the  ground  even  among  the  solitudes  of  ; 
the  mountains,  lest  some  wandering  stranger 
should  recognise  me,  and  see   the   brand  of  , 
ignominy  her  hand  and  his — accursed  buth —  , 
burnt  in  upon   my  brow.     She   forsook   this 
bosom — but  tell  me  if  it  was  in  disgust  with 
these  my  scars  V  ! 

And  as  he  bared  it,  distractcdl)',  that  noble 
chest  was  seen  indeed  disfigured  with  many  a 
gash — on  which  a  wife  might  well  have  rested 
lier  head  with  gratitude  not  less  devout  be- ! 
cause  of  a  lofty  pride  mingling  with  life-deep 
affection.  But  the  burst  of  passion  was  gone 
by  -and,  covering  his  face  with  his  hands,  he 
wept  like  a  child. 

"Oh!  cruel — cruel  was  her  conduct  to  me; 
yet  what  has  mine  been  to  her — for  so  many 
years!  I  could  not  tear  her  image  from  my 
memory — not  an  hour  has  it  ceased  to  haunt 
me;  since  I  came  among  these  mountains,  her 
ghost  is  for  ever  at  my  side.  I  have  striven  to 
drive  it  away  with  curses,  but  still  there  is  the 
phantom.  Sometimes— beautiful  as  on  our 
marriage  day— all  in  purest  white— adorned 
with  flowers— it  wreathes  its  arms  around  my 
neck — and  offers  its  mouth  to  my  kisses — and 
then  all  at  once  is  changed  into  a  leering 
■wretch,  retaining  a  likeness  of  my  bride— then 
into  a  corpse.     And  perhaps  she  is  dead- 


dead  of  cold  and  hunger :  she  whom  I  cherished 
in  all  luxury — whose  delicate  frame  seemed  to 
bring  round  itself  all  the  purest  air  and  sweet- 
est sunshine — she  may  have  expired  in  the 
very  mire — and  her  body  been  huddled  into 
some  hole  called  a  pauper's  grave.  And  I 
have  suffered  all  this  to  happen  her !  Or  have 
I  suffered  her  to  become  one  of  the  miserable 
multitude  who  support  hated  and  hateful  life 
by  prostitution]  Black  ■was  her  crime;  yet 
hardly  did  she  deserve  to  be  one  of  that  howl- 
ing crew — she  whose  voice  was  once  so  sweet, 
her  eyes  so  pure,  and  her  soul  so  innocent — 
for  up  to  the  hour  I  parted  with  her  weeping, 
no  evil  thought  had  ever  been  hers; — then 
why,  ye  eternal  Heavens !  why  fell  she  from 
that  sphere  where  she  shone  like  a  star?  Let 
that  mystery  that  shrouds  ray  mind  in  darkness 
be  lightened — let  me  see  into  its  heart — and 
know  but  the  meaning  of  her  guilt — and  then 
may  I  be  able  to  forgive  it ;  but  for  five  years, 
day  and  night,  it  has  troubled  and  confounded 
me — and  from  blind  and  baffled  wrath  with  an 
iniquity  that  remains  like  a  pitch-black  night 
through  which  I  cannot  grope  my  way,  no 
refuge  can  I  find — and  nothing  is  left  me  but 
to  tear  my  hair  out  by  handfuls — as,  like  a 
madman,  I  have  done — to  curse  her  by  name 
in  the  solitary  glooms,  and  to  call  down  upon 
her  the  curse  of  God.  O  wicked — most  wicked  ! 
Yet  He  who' judges  the  hearts  of  his  creatures, 
knows  that  I  have  a  thousand  and  a  thousand 
times  forgiven  her,  but  thai  a  chasm  lay  be- 
tween us,  from  which,  the  moment  that  I  came 
to  its  brink,  a  voice  drove  me  back — I  know 
not  whether  of  a  good  or  evil  spirit — and  bade 
me  leave  her  to  her  fate.  But  she  must  be 
dead — and  needs  not  now  ray  tears.  O  friend  ! 
judge  me  not  too  sternly — from  this  my  con- 
fession;  for  all  my  wild  words  have  imper- 
fectly expressed  to  you  but  parts  of  my  miser- 
able being-r-and  if  I  could  lay  it  all  before  you, 
you  would  pity  me  perhaps  as  much  as  con- 
demn—  for  my  worst  passions  only  have  now 
found  utterance — all  my  better  feelings  will 
not  return  nor  abide  for  words — even  I  myself 
have  forgotten  them ;  but  your  pitying  face 
seems  to  say,  that  they  will  be  remembered  at 
the  Throne  of  Mercy.  I  forgive  her."  And 
with  these  words  he  fell  down  on  his  knees, 
and  prayed  loo  for  pardon  to  his  own  sins. 
The  old  man  encouraged  him  not  to  despair — 
it  needed  but  a  motion  of  his  hand  to  bring  the 
child  from  her  couch  in  the  cover,  and  Lucy 
was  folded  to  her  father's  heart.  The  forgive- 
ness was  felt  to  be  holy  in  that  embrace. 

The  day  had  brightened  up  into  more  perfect 
beauty,  and  showers  were  sporting  with  sun- 
shine on  the  blue  air  of  Spring.  The  sky 
showed  something  like  a  rainbow — and  the 
Lake,  in  some  parts  quite  still,  and  in  some 
breezy,  contained  at  once  shadowy  fragments 
of  wood  and  rock,  and  waves  that  would  have 
murmured  round  the  prow  of  pleasure-boat 
suddenly  hoisting  a  sail.  .'Vnd  such  a  very 
boat  appeared  round  a  promontory  that  stretch- 
ed no  great  way  into  the  water,  and  formed 
with  a  crescent  of  low  meadow-land  a  bay  that 
was  the  first  to  feel  the  wind  coming  down 
Glencoin.  The  boatman  was  rowing  heed- 
lessly along,  when  a  sudden  squall  struck  the 


COTTAGES. 


55 


sail,  and  in  an  instant  the  skiff  was  upset  and 
vent  down.  No  shrieks  were  heard — and  the 
boatman  swam  ashore ;  but  a  figure  was  seen 
struggling  where  the  sail  disappeared — and 
starting  from  his  knees,  he  who  knew  not  fear 
plunged  into  the  Lake,  and  after  desperate  ex- 
ertions brought  the  drowned  creature  to  the 
side — a  female  meanly  attired — seemingl}'^  a 
stranger — and  so  attenuated  that  it  was  plain 
she  must  have  been  in  a  dying  state,  and  had 
she  not  thus  perished,  would  have  had  but  few 
days  to  live.  The  hair  was  gray — but  the  face 
though  withered  was  not  old — and,  as  she  lay 
on  the  greensward,  the  features  were  beautiful 
as  well  as  calm  in  the  sunshine. 

He  stood  over  her  awhile — as  if  struck  mo- 
tionless— and  then  kneeling  beside  the  body, 
tissed  its  lips  and  eyes — and  said  only,  "  It  is 
Lucy !" 

The  old  man  was  close  by — and  so  was  that 
child.  They  too  knelt — and  the  passion  of  the 
mourner  held  him  dumb,  with  his  face  close  to 
the  face  of  death — ghastly  its  glare  beside  the 
sleep  that  knows  no  waking,  and  is  forsaken 
by  all  dreams.  He  opened  the  bosom — wasted 
to  the  bone — in  the  idle  thought  that  she  might 
yet  breathe — and  a  paper  dropt  out  into  his 
hand,  which  he  read  aloud  to  himself — uncon- 
scious that  any  one  was  near.  "  I  am  fast 
dying — and  desire  to  die  at  your  feet.  Per- 
haps you  will  spurn  me — it  is  right  j'ou  should ; 
but  you  will  see  how  sorrow  has  killed  the 
■wicked  wretch  who  waa  once  your  wife.  I 
have  lived  in  humble  servitude  for  five  years, 
and  have  suflered  great  hardships.  I  think  1 
am  a  penitent — and  have  been  told  by  reli- 
gious persons  that  I  may  hope  for  pardon  from 
Heaven.  Oh  !  that  you  would  forgive  me  too  ! 
and  let  me  have  one  look  at  our  Lucy.  I  will 
linger  about  the  Field  of  Flowers — perhaps 
you  will  come  there,  and  see  me  lie  down  and 
die  on  the  very  spot  where  we  passed  a  sum- 
mer day  the  week  of  our  marriage." 


"  Not  thus  could  I  have  kissed  thy  lips — 
Lucy — had  they  been  red  with  life.  White 
are  they — and  white  must  they  long  have  been  ! 
No  pollution  on  them — nor  on  that  poor  bosom 
now.  Contrite  tears  had  long  since  washed 
out  thy  sin.  A  feeble  hand  traced  these  lines 
— and  in  them  an  humble  heart  said  nothing 
but  God's  truth.  Child — behold  your  mother. 
Art  thou  afraid  to  touch  the  dead!" 

"No — father — I  am  not  afraid  to  kiss  her 
lips — as  you  did  now.  Sometimes,  when  you 
thought  me  asleep,  I  have  heard  you  praying 
for  my  mother." 

"  Oh !  child  !  cease — cease — or  my  heart 
will  burst." 

People  began  to  gather  about  the  body — but 
awe  kept  them  aloof;  and  as  for  removing  it 
to  a  house,  none  who  saw  it  but  knew  such 
care  would  have  been  vain,  for  doubt  there 
could  be  none  that  there  lay  death.  So  the 
groups  remained  for  a  while  at  a  distance — 
even  the  old  pastor  went  a  good  many  paces 
apart ;  and  under  the  shadow  of  that  tree  the 
father  and  child  composed  her  limbs,  and 
closed  her  eyes,  and  continued  to  sit  beside 
her,  as  still  as  if  they  had  been  watching  over 
one  asleep. 

That  death  was  seen  by  all  to  be  a  strange 
calamity  to  him  who  had  lived  long  among 
them — had  adopted  many  of  their  customs — 
and  was  even  as  one  of  themselves — so  it 
seemed — in  the  familiar  intercourse  of  man 
with  man.  Some  dim  notion  that  this  was  the 
dead  body  of  his  wife  was  entertained  by  many, 
they  knew  not  why;  and  their  clergyman  felt 
that  then  there  needed  to  be  neither  conceal- 
ment nor  avowal  of  the  truth.  So  in  solemn 
sympathy  they  approached  the  body  and  its 
watchers ;  a  bier  had  been  prepared :  and 
walking  at  the  head,  as  if  it  had  been  a  funeral, 
the  Father  of  little  Lucy,  holding  her  hand, 
silently  directed  the  procession  towards  his 
own  house — out  of  the  Field  of  Flowers. 


COTTAGES. 


Have  you  any  intention,  dear  reader,of  build- 
ing a  house  in  the  country]  If  you  have,  pray, 
for  your  own  sake  and  ours,  let  it  not  be  a 
Cottage.  We  presume  that  you  are  obliged 
to  live,  one-half  of  the  year  at  least,  in  a  town. 
Then  why  change  altogether  the  character  of 
your  domicile  and  )-our  establishment  ?  You 
are  an  inhabitant  of  Edinburgh,  and  have  a 
house  in  the  Circus,  or  Heriot  Row,  or  Aber- 
cromby  Place,  or  Queen  Street.  The  said 
house  has  five  or  six  stories,  and  is  such  a 
palace  as  one  might  expect  in  the  Cit)'  of  Pa- 
laces. Your  drawing-rooms  can,  at  a  pinch, 
hold  some  ten  score  of  modern  Athenians — 
your  dining-room  might  feast  one-half  of  the 
contributors  to  Blackwood's  Magazine — your 
"placens  uxor"  has  her  boudoir — your  eldest 
daughter,  now  verging  on  womanhood,  her 
music-room — your  boys  their  own  studio — the 


governess  her  retreat — and  the  tutor  his  den — 
the  housekeeper  sits  like  an  overgrown  spider 
in  her  own  sanctum— the  butler  bargains  for 
his  dim  apartment — and  the  four  maids  must 
have  their  front-area  window.  In  short,  from 
cellarage  to  garret,  all  is  complete,  and  Num- 
ber Forty-two  is  really  a  splendid  mansion. 

Now,  dear  reader,  far  be  it  from  us  to  ques- 
tion the  propriety  or  prudence  of  such  an  es- 
tablishment. Your  house  was  not  built  for 
nothing — it  was  no  easy  thing  to  get  the  paint- 
ers out — the  furnishing  thereof  was  no  trifle — 
the  feu-duty  is  really  unreasonable — and  taxes 
are  taxes  still,  notwithstanding  the  principles 
of  free  trade,  and  the  universal  prosperity  of 
the  countr5^  Servants  are  wasteful,  and  their 
wa?es  absurd— and  the  whole  style  of  living, 
with  long-necked  bottles,  most  extravagant. 
But  still  we  do  not  object  to  your  estebli^h- 


56 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


ment — far  from  it,  we  admire  it  much  ;  nor  is 
there  a  single  house  in  town  where  we  make 
ourselves  more  agreeable  to  a  late  hour,  or 
that  we  leave  Avith  a  greater  quantity  of  wine 
of  a  good  quality  under  our  girdle.  Few 
things  would  give  us  more  temporary  uneasi- 
ness, than  to  hear  of  any  embarrassment  in 
your  money  concerns.  We  are  not  people  to 
forget  good  fare,  we  assure  you;  and  long  and 
far  may  all  shapes  of  sorrow  keep  aloof  from 
the  hospitable  board,  whether  illuminated  by 
gas,  oil,  or  mutton. 

But  what  we  were  going  to  say  is  this — that 
the  head  of  such  a  house  ought  not  to  live, 
when  ruralizing,  in  a  Cottage.  He  ought  to  be 
consistent.  Nothing  so  beautiful  as  consis- 
tency. What  then  is  so  absurd  as  to  cram 
yourself,  your  wife,  your  numerous  progeny, 
and  your  scarcely  less  numerous  menials,  into 
a  concern  called  a  Cottage  1  The  ordinary 
heat  of  a  baker's  oven  is  very  few  degrees 
above  that  of  a  bnnvn  study,  during  the  month 
of  July,  in  a  substantial,  low-roofed  Cottage, 
yhen  the  smell  of  the  kitchen  !  How  it  aggra- 
vates the  sultry  closeness  !  A  strange,  com- 
pounded, inexplicable  smell  of  animal,  vegeta- 
ble, and  mineral  matter.  It  is  at  the  worst 
during  the  latter  part  of  the  forenoon,  when 
every  thing  has  been  got  into  preparation  for 
cookery.  There  is  then  nothing  savoury  about 
the  smell — it  is  dull,  dead — almo>t  catacom- 
bish.  A  small  back-kitchen  has  it  in  its  power 
to  destroy  the  sweetness  of  any  Cottage.  .\dd 
a  scullery,  and  the  three  are  omnipotent.  Of 
the  eternal  clashing  of  pots,  pans,  plates,  trench- 
ers, and  general  crockery,  we  now  say  no- 
thing; indeed,  the  sound  somewhat  relieves 
the  smell,  and  the  ear  comes  occasionally  in 
to  the  aid  of  the  nose.  Such  noises  are  wind- 
falls ;  but  not  so  the  scolding  of  cook  and  but- 
ler— at  first  low  and  tetchy,  with  pauses — then 
sharp,  but  still  interrupted — by  and  by,  loud 
and  ready  in  reply — finally  a  discMrdaiit  gab- 
ble of  vulgar  fury,  like  maniacs  quarrelling  in 
bedlam.  Hear  it  you  must — you  and  all  the 
strangers.  To  explain  it  away  is  impossible ; 
and  your  fear  is,  that  Alecto,  Tisiphone,  or 
MegKra,  will  come  flying  into  the  parlour  with 
a  bloody  cleaver,  dripping  with  the  butler's 
brains.  During  the  time  of  the  quarrel  the 
spit  has  been  standing  still,  and  a  gigot  of  the 
five-year-old  black-face  burnt  on  one  side  to  cin- 
der.— "To  dinner  witn  n'hat  appetite  you  may." 
It  would  be  quite  unpardonable  to  forget  one 
especial  smell  Avhich  irretrievably  ruined  our 
happiness  during  a  whole  summer — the  smell 
of  a  dead  rat.  The  accursed  vermin  died 
somewhere  in  the  Cottage;  but  whether  be- 
neath a  floor,  within  lath  and  plaster,  or  in 
roof,  baffled  the  conjectures  of  the  most  saga- 
cious. The  whole  familv  used  to  walk  about 
the  Cottage  for  hours  every  dav.  snufling  on  a 
travel  of  discovery;  and  we  distinctly  remem- 
ber the  face  of  one  elderly  maiden-lady  at  the 
moment  she  thought  she  had  traced  the  source 
of  the  fumee  to  the  wall  behind  a  window- 
shutter.  But  even  at  the  very  same  instant 
we  ourselves  had  proclaimed  it  with  open 
J.ostril  from  a  press  in  an  opposite  corner. 
Terriers  were  procured— but  the  dog  Billv 
iraself  would  have  been  at  fault.     To  puil 


down  the  whole  Cottage  would  have  been  diffi- 
cult— at  least  to  build  it  up  again  would  have 
been  so;  so  we  had  to  submit.  Custom,  they 
say,  is  second  nature,  but  not  when  a  dead  rat 
is  in  the  house.  No,  none  can  ever  become 
accustomed  to  that ;  yet  good  springs  out  of 
evil — for  the  live  rats  could  not  endure  it,  and 
emigrated  to  a  friend's  house,  about  a  mile  off, 
who  has  never  had  a  sound  night'b  rc^l  from 
that  day.  We  have  not  revisited  our  Cottage 
for  several  years  ;  but  time  does  wonders,  ami 
we  were  lately  told  by  a  person  of  some  ve- 
racity, that  the  smell  was  then  nearly  gone — 
but  our  informant  is  a  gentleman  of  blunted 
olfactory  nerves,  having  been  engaged  from 
seventeen  to  seventy  in  a  soap-work. 

Smoke  too!  More  especially  that  mysteri- 
ous and  infernal  sort,  called  back-smoke  !  The 
old  proverb,  "No  smoke  without  fire,"  is  a 
base  )■>.  We  have  seen  smoke  without  fire 
in  every  room  in  a  most  delightful  Collage  we 
inhabited  during  ihe  dog-days.  The  moment 
you  ru.shed  for  refuge  even  into  a  closet,  you 
were  blinded  and  stilled;  nor  shall  we  ever  for- 
get our  horror  on  being  within  an  ace  of  smoth- 
eration  in  the  cellar.  At  last,  we  groped  our 
way  into  the  kitchen.  Neither  cook  nor  jack 
was  visible.  We  heard,  indeed,  a  whirring 
and  revolving  noise — and  then  suddenly  Grizie 
swearing  through  liie  mist.  Vet  all  this  while 
people  were  admiring  our  cottage  from  a  dis- 
tance, and  especially  this  self-same  accursed 
back-sinokc, some  portions  of  which  had  made 
an  excursion  up  the  chimneys,  and  was  waver- 
ing away  in  a  spiral  form  to  the  sky,  in  a  style 
captivating  to  Mr.  Price  on  the  Picturesque. 

No  doubt,  there  are  many  things  very  roman- 
tic about  a  Cottage.  Creepers,  for  example. 
Why,  sir,  these  creepers  are  the  most  mis- 
chievous nuisance  that  can  afllict  a  family. 
There  is  no  occasion  for  mentioning  names, 
but — devil  take  all  parasites.  Some  of  the 
rogues  will  actually  grow  a  couple  of  inches 
upon  you  in  one  day's  lime  ;  and  when  all  other 
honest  plants  are  asleep, the  creepers  are  hard 
at  it  all  night  long,  stretching  out  their  toes  and 
their  fingers,  and  catching  an  inextricable  hold 
of  every  wall  they  can  reach,  till,  finally,  you 
see  them  ihrusiing  their  impudent  heads  through 
the  very  slates.  Then,  like  other  low-bred 
creatures,  they  are  covered  with  vermin.  All 
manner  of  moths — the  most  grievous  grubs — 
slimy  slugs — s,piders  spinning  toils  to  ensnare 
the  caterpillar — earwigs  and  slaters,  that  would 
raise  the  gorge  of  a  country  curate — wood- 
lice — the  slaver  of  gowk's-spittle — midges — 
jocks-with-ihe-many-legs  :  in  short,  the  whole 
plague  of  insects  infesi  that — Virgin's  bower. 
Open  ihe  lattice  for  half  an  hour,  and  you  find 
yourself  in  an  entomological  museum.  Then, 
there  are  no  pins  fixing  down  the  specimens. 
.Ml  these  beetles  are  alive,  more  especially  the 
enormous  blackguard  crawling  behind  your 
ear.  A  moth  plumps  into  yourtumbler  of  cold 
negus,  and  goes  whirling  around  in  meal,  till 
he  makes  absolute  porritch.  As  you  open  your 
mouth  in  amazement,  ihe  large  blue-bottle  fly, 
having  made  his  escape  from  the  spiders,  and 
seeing  that  not  a  moment  is  to  be  losl,  precipi- 
tatps  himself  head-foremost  down  your  throat, 
and  is  felt,  after   a   few  ineffectual  struggles, 


COTTAGES. 


67 


settling  in  despair  at  the  very  bottom  of  your 
stomach.  Still,  no  person  will  be  so  unreason- 
able as  to  deny  that  creepers  on  a  Cottage  are 
most  beautiful.  For  the  sake  of  their  beauty, 
some  little  sacrifices  must  be  made  of  one's 
comforts,  especially  as  it  is  only  for  one-half  of 
the  year,  and  last  really  was  a  most  delightful 
summer. 

How  truly  romantic  is  a  thatch  roof!  The 
eaves  how  commodious  for  sparrows!  What  a 
paradise  for  rats  and  mice  !  What  a  comfort- 
able colony  of  vermin  !  They  all  bore  their 
own  tunnels  in  every  direction,  and  the  whole 
interior  becomes  a  Cretan  labyrinth.  Frush, 
frush  becomes  the  whole  cover  in  a  few  sea- 
sons ;  and  not  a  bird  can  open  his  wing,  not  a 
rat  switch  his  tail,  without  scattering  the  straw 
like  chaff.  Eternal  repairs  !  Look  when  you 
will,  and  half-a-dozen  thatchers  are  riding  on 
the  rigging  :  of  all  operatives  the  most  inoper- 
ative. Then  there  is  always  one  of  the  num- 
ber descending  the  ladder  for  a  horn  of  ale. 
Without  warning,  the  straw  is  all  used  up; 
and  no  more  fit  for  the  purpose  can  be  got 
within  twenty  miles.  They  hint  heather — and 
you  sighi'or  slate — the  beautiful  sky-blue,  sea- 
green,  liallahulish  slate  !  But  the  summer  is 
nearly  over  and  gone,  and  you  must  be  flitting 
back  to  the  city  ;  so  you  let  the  job  stand  over 
to  spring,  and  the  soaking  rains  and  snows  of 
a  long  winter  search  the  Cottage  to  its  hearl's- 
core,  and  every  floor  is  erelong  laden  with  a 
crop  of  fungi — the  bed-posts  are  ornamented 
curiously  with  lichens,  and  mosses  bathe  the 
walls  with  their  various  and  inimitable  lustre. 

Every  thing  is  romantic  that  is  pastoral — 
and  what  more  pastoral  than  sheep  ?  .\ccord- 
ingly,  living  in  a  Cottage,  you  kill  your  own 
mutton.  Great  lubberly  Leicesters  or  South- 
Downs  are  not  worth  the  mastication,  so  you 
keep  the  small  black-face.  Stone  walls  are 
ugly  things,  you  think,  near  a  Cottage,  so  you 
have  rails  or  hurdles.  Day  and  night  are  the 
small  black-face,  out  of  pure  spite,  bouncing 
through  or  over  all  impediments,  after  an  ad- 
venturous leader,  and,  despising  the  daisied 
turf,  keep  nibbling  away  at  all  your  rare  flow- 
ering shrubs,  till  your  avenue  is  a  desolation. 
Every  twig  has  its  little  ball  of  wool,  and  it  is 
a  rare  time  for  the  nest-makers.  You  purchase 
a  colley,  but  he  compromises  the  affair  with 
the  fleecy  nation,  and  contents  himself  with 
barking  all  night  long  at  the  moon,  if  there  hap- 
pen to  be  one,  if  not,  at  the  firmament  of  his 
kennel.  You  are  too  humane  to  hang  or  drown 
Luath,  so  you  give  him  to  a  friend.  But  Luath 
is  in  love  with  the  cook,  and  pays  her  nightly 
visits.  Afraid  of  being  entrapped  should  he 
step  into  the  kennel,  he  takes  up  his  station,  af- 
ter supper,  on  a  knoll  within  ear-range,  and 
pointing  his  snout  to  the  stars,  joins  the  music 
of  the  spheres,  and  is  himself  a  perfect  Sirius. 
The  gardener  at  last  gets  orders  to  shoot  him 
— and  the  gun  being  somewhat  rusty,  bursts 
and  blows  off  his  left  hand — so  that  Andrew 
Fairservice  retires  on  a  pension. 

Of  all  breeds  of  cattle  we  most  admire  the 
Alderney.  They  are  slim,  delicate,  wild-deer- 
looking  creatures,  that  give  an  air  to  a  Cottage. 
But  they  are  most  capricious  milkers.  Of 
course  j'ou  make  your  own  butter;  that  is 
8 


to  say,  with  the  addition  of  a  dozen  purchased 
pounds  weekly,  you  are  not  very  often  out  of 
that  commodity.  Then,  once  or  twice  in  a 
summer,  they  suddenly  lose  their  temper,  and 
chase  the  governess  and  your  daughters  over 
the  edge  of  a  gravel-pit.  Nothing  they  like  so 
much  as  the  tender  sprouts  of  cauliflower,  nor 
do  they  abhor  green  pease.  The  garden-hedge 
is  of  privet,  a  pretty  fence,  and  fast  growing, 
but  not  formidable  to  a  four-year-old.  On 
going  to  eat  a  few  gooseberries  by  sunrise, 
you  start  a  covey  of  cows,  that  in  their  alarm 
plunge  into  the  hot-bed  with  a  smash,  as  if  all 
the  glass  in  the  island  had  been  broken — and 
rushing  out  at  the  gate  at  the  critical  instant 
little  Tommy  is  tottering  in,  they  leave  the 
heir-apparent,  scarcely  deserving  that  name, 
half  hidden  in  the  border.  There  is  no  sale 
for  such  outlandish  animals  in  the  home- 
market,  and  it  is  not  Martinmas,  so  you  must 
make  a  present  of  them  to  the  president  or  five 
silver-cupman  of  an  agricultural  society,  and  , 
you  receive  in  return  a  sorry  red  round,  des- 
perately saltpetred,  at  Christmas. 

What  is  a  Cottage  in  the  country,  unless 
"your  banks  are  all  furnished  with  bees, 
whose  murmurs  invite  one  to  sleep  1"  There 
the  hives  stand,  like  four-and-twenty  fiddlers  all 
in  a  row.  Not  a  more  harmless  insect  in  all  this 
world  than  a  bee.  Wasps  are  devils  incarnate, 
but  bees  are  fleshly  sprites,  as  amiable  as 
industrious.  You  are  strolling  along,  in  de- 
lightful mental  vacuity,  looking  at  a  poem  of 
Barry  Cornwall's,  when  smack  comes  an  in- 
furiated honey-maker  against  your  eyelid,  and 
plunges  into  you  the  fortieth  part  of  an  inch 
of  sting  saturated  in  venom.  The  wretch 
clings  to  your  lid  like  a  burr,  and  it  feels  as  if 
he  had  a  million  claws  to  hold  him  on  while 
he  is  darting  his  weapon  into  your  eyeball. 
Your  banks  are  indeed  well  furnished  with 
bees,  but  their  murmurs  do  not  invite  you  to 
sleep  ;  on  the  contrary,  away  you  fly  like  a 
madman,  bolt  into  your  wife's  room,  and  roar 
out  for  the  recipe.  The  whole  of  one  side  of 
your  face  is  most  absurdly  swollen,  while  the 
other  is  in  statu  quo.  One  eye  is  dwindled 
away  to  almost  nothing,  and  is  peering  forth 
from  its  rainbow-coloured  envelope,  while  the 
other  is  open  as  day  to  melting  charity,  and 
shining  over  a  cheek  of  the  purest  crimson. 
Infatuated  man  !  Why  could  you  not  purchase 
your  honey"!  Jemmy  Thomson,  the  poet, 
would  have  let  you  have  it,  from  Habbie's- 
Howe,  the  true  Pentlaud  elixir,  for  five  shil- 
lings the  pint;  for  during  this  season  both  the 
heather  and  the  clover  were  prolific  of  the 
honey-dew,  and  the  Skeps  rejoiced  over  all 
Scotland  on  a  thousand  hills. 

We  could  tell  many  stories  about  bees, 
but  that  would  be  leading  us  away  from  the 
main  argument.  We  remember  reading  in  an 
American  newspaper,  some  years  ago,  that  the 
United  States  lost  one  of  their  most  upright 
and  erudite  judges  by  bees,  which  stung  him 
to  death  in  a  wood  while  he  was  going  the 
circuit.  About  a  year  afterwards,  we  read  in 
the  same  newspaper,  "  We  are  afraid  we  have 
lost  another  judge  by  bees  ;"  and  then  followed 
a  somewhat  affrightful  description  of  the  as- 
sassination of  another  American  Blackstone 


68 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


by  the  same  insects.  We  could  not  fail  to 
sympathize  with  both  sufferers ;  for  in  the 
summer  of  the  famous  comet  we  ourselves  had 
nearly  shared  the  same  fate.  Our  Newfound- 
lander upset  a  hive  in  his  vagaries — and  the 
whole  swarm  unjustly  attacked  us.  The  buzz 
was  an  absolute  roar — and  for  the  first  time 
in  our  lives  we  were  under  a  cloud.  Such 
bizzing  in  our  hair !  and  of  what  avail  were 
fifty-times-washed  nankeen  breeches  against 
the  Polish  Lancers?  With  our  trusty  crutch 
we  made  thousands  bile  the  dust — but  the 
wounded  and  dying  crawled  up  our  legs,  and 
stung  us  cruelly  over  the  lower  regions.  At 
last  we  took  to  flight,  and  found  shelter  in  the 
ice-house.  But  it  seemed  as  if  a  new  hive  had 
been  disturbed  in  that  cool  grotto.  Again  we 
sallied  out  stripping  off  garment  after  garment, 
till  in  pi(ris  nnlnralibus,  we  leaped  into  a  win- 
dow, which  happened  to  be  that  of  the  draw- 
ing-room, where  a  large  party  of  ladies  and 
gentlemen  were  awaiting  the  dinner-bell — but 
fancy  must  dream  the  rest. 

We  now  offer  a  Set  of  Blackwood's  Maga- 
zine to  any  scientific  character  who  will 
answer  this  seemingly  simple  question — what 
is  Damp  1  Quicksilver  is  a  joke  to  it,  for  get- 
ting into  or  out  of  any  place.  Capricious  as 
damp  is,  it  is  faithful  in  its  affection  lo  ail 
Cottages  orn^es.  What  more  pleasant  than  a 
bow-window?  You  had  better,  however,  not 
sit  with  your  back  against  the  wall,  for  it  is  as 
blue  and  ropy  as  that  of  a  charnel-house. 
Probably  the  wall  is  tastily  papered — a  vine- 
leaf  pattern  perhaps — ^or  something  spriir^y — 
or  in  the  aviary  line — or,  mayhap,  hay-makers, 
or  shepherds  piping  in  the  dale.  But  all  dis- 
tinctions are  levelled  in  the  mould — Phyllis 
has  a  black  patch  over  her  eye,  and  Sirephon 
seems  to  be  playing  on  a  pair  of  bellows. 
Damp  delights  to  descend  chimneys,  and  is 
one  of  smoke's  most  powerful  auxiliaries.  It 
is  a  thousand  pities  you  hung  up — just  in  that 
unlucky  spot — Grecian  Williams's  Thebes — 
for  now  one  of  the  finest  water-colour  paint- 
ings in  the  world  is  not  worth  six-and-eighl- 
pence.  There  is  no  living  in  the  country 
without  a  librarj'.  Take  down,  with  all  due 
caution,  that  enormous  tome,  the  Excursion, 
and  let  us  hear  something  of  the  Pedlar.  There 
is  an  end  to  the  invention  of  printing.  Lo  and 
behold,  blank  verse  indeed !  You  cannot  help 
turning  over  twenty  leaves  at  once,  for  they 
are  all  amalgamated  in  must  and  mouldiness. 
Lord  Byron  himself  is  no  better  than  an 
Egyptian  mummy;  and  the  Great  Unknown 
addresses  you  in  hieroglyphics. 

We  have  heard  different  opinions  maintained 
on  the  subject  of  damp  sheets.  For  our  own 
part,  we  always  wish  to  feel  the  difference 
between  sheets  and  cerements.  We  hate 
every  thing  clammy.  It  is  awkward,  on  leap- 
ing out  of  bed  to  admire  the  moon,  to  drag 
along  with  you,  glued  round  the  bodv  and 
members,  the  whole  paraphernalia  of  the 
couch.  It  can  never  be  good  for  rheumatism 
—problematical  even  for  fever.  Now,  be  can- 
did—did you  ever  sleep  in  perfectly  drj-  sheets 
in  a  Cottage  ornee?  You  would  not  like  to 
say  "  No,  never,"  in  the  morning— privately, 
U)  host  or  hostess.     But  confess  publicly,  and 


trace  your  approaching  retirement  from  all  the 
troubles  of  this  life,  to  the  dimitj-curtained 
cubiculum  on  Tweedside. 

We  know  of  few  events  so  restorative  as  the 
arrival  of  a  coachful  of  one's  friends,  if  the 
house  be  roomy.  But  if  every  thing  there  be 
on  a  small  scale,  how  tremendous  a  sudden 
importation  of  live  cattle !  The  children  are 
all  trundled  away  out  of  the  cottage,  and  their 
room  given  up  to  the  young  ladies,  with  all 
its  enigmatical  and  emblematical  wall-tracery. 
The  captain  is  billeted  in  the  boudoir,  on  a 
shake-down.  My  lady's  maid  must  positively 
pass  the  night  in  the  butler's  pantry,  and  the 
valet  makes  a  dormitory  of  the  store-room. 
Where  the  old  gentleman  and  his  spouse  have 
been  disposed  of.  remains  as  controversial  a 
point  as  the  authorship  of  Junius  ;  but  next 
morning  at  the  breakfast-table,  it  appears  that 
all  ha/e  fiur\ived  the  night,  and  the  hospitable 
hostess  remarks,  with  a  self-complacent  smile, 
that  small  as  the  cottage  appears,  it  has  won- 
derful accommodation,  and  could  have  easily 
admitted  half  a  dozen  more  patients.  The 
visiters  politely  request  to  be  favoured  with  a 
plan  of  so  very  commodious  a  cottage,  but 
silently  swear  never  again  to  sleep  in  a  house 
of  one  story,  till  life's  brief  tale  be  told. 

But  not  one  half  the  comforts  of  a  cottage 
have  yet  been  enumerated — nor  shall  they  be 
by  us  at  the  present  juncture.  Suffice  it  to 
add,  that  the  strange  coachman  had  been  per- 
suaded to  put  up  his  horses  in  the  outhouses, 
instead  of  taking  them  to  an  excellent  inn 
about  two  miles  olf.  The  old  black  long-tailed 
steeds,  that  had  dragged  the  vehicle  for  nearly 
twenty  years,  had  been  lodged  in  what  was 
called  the  stable,  and  the  horse  behind  had 
been  introduced  \n\o  the  byre.  As  bad  luck 
would  have  it,  a  small,  sick,  and  surly  shelty 
was  in  his  stall ;  and  without  the  slightest 
provocation,  he  had,  during  the  night-watches, 
so  handled  his  heels  against  Mr.  Fox,  that 
he  had  not  left  the  senior  a  leg  to  stand 
upon,  while  he  had  bit  a  lump  out  of  the  bul- 
locks of  Mr.  Put  little  less  than  an  orange.  A 
cow,  afraid  of  her  calf,  had  committed  an  as- 
sault on  the  roadster,  and  tore  up  his  tlank  with 
her  crooked  horn  as  clean  as  if  it  had  been  a 
ripping  chisel.  The  party  had  to  proceed  with 
post-horses;  and  although  Mr.  Dick  be  at  once 
one  of  the  most  skilful  and  most  moderate 
of  veterinary  surgeons,  his  bill  at  the  end  of 
autumn  was  necessarily  as  long  as  that  of  a 
proctor.  .Mr.  Fox  gave  up  the  ghost — Mr.  Pitt 
was  put  on  the  superannuated  list — and  Jo- 
seph Hume,  the  hack,  was  sent  to  the  dogs. 

To  this  condition,  ihen,  we  must  come  at 
last,  that  if  you  build  at  all  in  the  country,  it 
must  be  a  mansion  three  stories  high,  at  the 
lowest — large  airy  rooms — roof  of  slates  and 
lead — and  walls  of  the  freestone  or  the  Roman 
cement.  No  small  black-faces,  no  Alderneys, 
no  beehives.  Buy  all  your  vivres,  and  live 
like  a  gentleman.  Seldom  or  never  be  with- 
out a  houseful  of  company.  If  you  manage 
your  family  matters  properly,  you  may  have 
your  time  nearly  as  much  at  your  own  dis- 
posal as  if  you  were  the  greatest  of  hunkses, 
and  never  gave  but  unavoidable  dinners.  Let 
the  breakfast-gong  sound  at  ten  o'clock — quite 


COTTAGES. 


59 


soon  enough.  The  young  people  will  have 
been  romping  about  the  parlours  or  the  pur- 
lieus for  a  couple  of  hours — and  will  all  make 
their  appearance  in  the  beauty  of  high  health 
and  high  spirits.  Chat  away  as  long  as  need 
be,  after  muffins  and  mutton-ham,  in  small 
groups  on  sofas  and  settees,  and  then  slip  you 
away  to  your  library,  to  add  a  chapter  to  your 
novel,  or  your  history,  or  to  any  other  task- 
that  is  to  make  you  immortal.  Let  gigs  and 
curricles  draw  up  in  the  circle,  and  the  wooing 
and  betrothed  wheel  away  across  a  few  pa- 
rishes. Let  the  pedestrians  saunter  off  into 
the  woods  or  to  the  hillside — the  anglers  be  off 
to  loch  or  river.  No  great  harm  even  in  a 
game  or  two  at  billiards — if  such  be  of  any  the 
cue — sagacious  spinsters  of  a  certain  age, 
staid  dowagers,  and  bachelors  of  sedentary 
habits,  may  have  recourse,  without  blame,  to 
the  chess  or  backgammon  board.  At  two  lunch 
— and  at  six  the  dinner-gong  will  bring  the 
whole  Hock  together,  all  dressed — mind  that — 
all  dressed,  for  slovenliness  is  an  abomination. 
Let  no  elderly  gentleman,  however  bilious 
and  rich,  seek  to  monopolize  a  young  lad)^ — 
but  study  the  nature  of  things.  Champagne 
of  course,  and  if  not  all  the  delicacies,  at  least 
all  the  substantialities  of  the  season.  Join  the 
ladies  in  about  two  hours — a  little  elevated  or 
so — almost  imperceptibly — but  still  a  little 
elevated  or  so;  then  music — whispering  in 
corners — if  moonlight  and  stars,  then  an  hour's 
out-of-door  study  of  astronomy — no  very  regu- 
lar supper — but  an  appearance  of  plates  and 
tumblers,  and  to  bed,  to  happy  dreams  and 
slumbers  light,  at  the  witching  hour.  Let  no 
gentleman  or  lady  snore,  if  it  can  be  avoided, 
lest  they  annoy  tlie  crickets  ;  and  if  you  hear 
any  extraordinary  noise  round  and  round 
about  the  mansion,  be  not  alarmed,  for  why 
should  not  the  owls  choose  their  own  hour  of 
revelry  ! 

Fond  as  we  are  of  the  country,  we  would 
not,  had  we  our  oitlion,  live  there  all  the  year 
round.  We  should  just  wish  to  linger  into  the 
winter  about  as  far  as  the  middle  of  December 
— then  to  a  city — say  at  once  Edinburgh.  There 
is  as  good  skating-ground.  and  as  good  curling- 
ground,  at  Lochend  and  Uuddingstone,  as  any 
where  in  all  Scotland — nor  is  there  anywhere 
else  better  beef  and  greens.  There  is  no  per- 
fection anywhere,  but  Edinburgh  society  is 
excellent.  We  are  certainly  agreeable  citi- 
zens; with  just  a  sufficient  spice  of  party 
spirit  to  season  the  feast  of  reason  and  the 
flow  of  soul,  and  to  prevent  society  from  be- 
coming drowsily  unanimous.  Without  the 
fillip  of  a  little  scandal,  honest  people  M'ould 
fall  asleep;  and  surely  it  is  far  preferable  to 
that  to  abuse  one's  friends  with  moderation. 
Even  Literature  and  the  Belles  Lettres  are  not 
entirely  useless ;  and  our  Human  Life  would 
not  be  so  delightful  as  that  of  Mr.  Rogers, 
without  a  few  occasional  Noctes  Ambro- 
sianae. 

But  the  title  of  our  article  recalls  our  wan- 
dering thoughts,  and  our  talk  must  be  of  Cot- 
tages. Now,  think  not,  beloved  reader,  that 
we  care  not  for  Cottages,  for  that  would  indeed 
be  a  gross  mistake.  But  our  very  affections 
are   philosophical;   our  sympathies   have  all 


their  source  in  reason  ;  and  our  admiration  is 
alwaj's  built  on  the  foundation  of  truth.  Taste, 
and  feeling,  and  thought,  and  experience,  and 
knowledge  of  this  life's  concerns,  are  all  indis- 
pensable to  the  true  delights  the  imagination 
experiences  in  beholding  a  beautiful  bond  fide 
Cottage.  It  must  be  the  dwelling  of  the  poor; 
and  it  is  that  which  gives  it  its  whole  character. 
By  the  poor,  we  mean  not  paupers,  beggars ; 
but  families  who,  to  eat,  must  work,  and  who, 
by  working,  may  still  be  able  to  eat.  Plain, 
coarse,  not  scanty,  but  unsuperfluous  fare  is 
theirs  from  year's-end  to  year's-end,  excepting 
some  decent  and  grateful  change  on  chance 
holydays  of  nature's  own  appointment — a  wed- 
ding, or  a  christening,  or  a  funeral.  Yes,  a 
funeral;  for  when  this  mortal  coil  is  shuffled 
off,  why  should  the  hundreds  of  people  that 
come  trooping  over  muirs  and  mosses  to  see 
the  body  deposited,  walk  so  many  miles,  and 
lose  a  whole  day's  work,  without  a  dinner? 
And,  if  there  be  a  dinner,  should  it  not  be  a 
good  one?  And  if  a  good  one,  will  the  com- 
pany not  be  social!  But  this  is  a  subject  for 
a  future  paper,  nor  need  such  paper  be  of  other 
than  a  cheerful  character.  Poverty,  then,  is 
the  builder  and  beautifier  of  all  huts  and  cot- 
tages. But  the  views  of  honest  poverty  are 
always  hopeful  and  prospective.  Strength  of 
muscle  and  strength  of  mind  form  a  truly  Holy 
Alliance;  and  the  future  brightens  before  the 
steadfast  eyes  of  trust.  Therefore,  when  a 
house  is  built  in  the  valley,  or  on  the  hillside 
— be  it  that  of  the  poorest  cottar — there  is  some 
little  room,  or  nook,  or  spare  place,  which  hope 
consecrates  to  the  future.  Better  times  may 
come — a  shilling  or  two  may  be  added  to  the 
week's  wages — parsimony  may  accumulate  a 
small  capital  in  the  Savings  bank  sufficient  to 
purchase  an  old  eight-day  clock,  a  chest  of 
drawers  for  the  wife,  a  curtained  bed  for  the 
lumber-place,  which  a  little  labour  will  convert 
into  a  bed-room.  It  is  not  to  be  thought  that 
the  pasture-fields  become  every  year  greener, 
and  the  corn-fields  every  harvest  more  yellow 
— that  the  hedgerows  grow  to  thicker  fragrance, 
and  the  birch-tree  waves  its  tresses  higher  in 
the  air,  and  expands  its  white-rinded  stem 
almost  to  the  bulk  of  a  tree  of  the  forest — and 
yet  that  there  shall  be  no  visible  progress  from 
irood  to  better  in  the  dwelling  of  those  whose 
hands  and  hearts  thus  cultivate  the  soil  into 
rejoicing  beauty.  As  the  whole  land  prospers, 
so  does  each  individual  dwelling.  Every  ten 
years,  the  observing  eye  sees  a  new  expressirou 
on  the  face  of  the  silent  earth ;  the  law  of  la- 
bour is  no  melancholy  lot;  for  to  industry  the 
yoke  is  easy,  and  content  is  its  own  exceeding 
great  reward. 

Therefore,  it  does  our  heart  good  to  look  on 
a  Cottage.  Here  the  objections  to  straw-roofs 
have  no  application.  A  few  sparrows  chirp- 
ing and  fluttering  in  the  eaves  can  do  no  great 
harm,  and  they  serve  to  amuse  the  children. 
The  very  baby  in  the  cradle,  when  all  the  fa 
mily  are  in  the  fields,  mother  and  all,  hears  the 
cheerful  twitter,  and  is  reconciled  to  solitude. 
The  quantity  of  corn  that  a  few  sparrows  can 
eat — greedy  creatures  as  they  are — cannot  be 
very  deadly;  and  it  is  chiefly  in  the  winter 
time  that  they  attack  the  stacks,  when  there  is 


60 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


much  excuse  to  be  made  on  the  ple.a  of  hunger. 
As  to  the  destruction  of  a  little  thatch,  why, 
there  is  not  a  boy  about  the  house,  above  ten 
years,  who  is  not  a  thatchcr,  and  there  is  no 
expense  in  such  repairs.     Let  the  honeysuckle 
too  steal  up  the  wall,  and  even  blind  unchecked 
a  corner  of  the  kitchen-window.    Its  fragrance 
will  often  cheer  unconsciously  the  labourer's 
heart,  as,  in  the  midday-hour  of  rest,  he  sits 
dandling  his  child  on  his  knee,  or  converses 
with  the  passing  pedlar.     Let  the  moss-rose 
tree  llourish,  that  its  bright  blush-balls  may 
dazzle  in  the  kirk  the  eyes  of  the  lover  of  fair 
Helen  Irwin,  as  they  rise  and  fall  with  every 
movement  of  a  bosom  yet  happy  in  its  virgin 
innocence.     Nature  docs  not  spread  in  vain 
her  flowers  in  flush  and  fragrance  over  every 
obscure  nook  of  earth.     Simple  and  pure   is 
the  delight  they  inspire.     Not  to  the  poet's  eye 
alone  is  their  language  addressed.    The  beauti- 
ful symbols  are  understond  by  lowliest  minds; 
and  while  the  philosophical  Wordsworth  speaks 
of  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  givinjr  a  jov 
too  deep  for  tears,  so  do  all  mankind  feel  the 
exquisite  truth  of  Burns's  more  simple  address 
to  the  mountain-daisy  which  his  ploughshare 
had  upturned.     The  one  touches  sympathies 
too  profound  to  be  general— the  other  speaks 
as  a  son  of  the  soil  affected  by  the  fate  of  the 
most  familiar  flower   that   springs   from   the 
bosom  of  our  common  dust. 

Generally  speaking,  there  has  been  a  spirit 
of  improvement  at  work,  durine  these  last 
twenty  years,  iipon  all  the  Cottages  in  Scot- 
land. The  villages  are  certainly  much  neater 
and  cleaner  Xlian  formerly,  and  in  very  few 
respects,  if  any,  positively  offensive.     Perhaps 

none  of  them  have — nor  ever  will  have the 

exquisite  trimness,  the  habitual  and  hereditary 
rustic  elegance,  of  the  best  villages  of  England. 
There,  even  the  idle  and  worthless  have  an  in- 
stinctive love  of  what  is  decent,  and  orderly, 
and  pretty  in  their  habitations.  The  very 
drunkard  must  have  a  well-sanded  floor,  a 
clean-swept  hearth,  clear-polished  furniture, 
and  uncobwebbed  walls  to  the  room  in  which 
he  quaffs,  guzzles,  and  smokes  himself  into 
stupidity.  His  wife  may  be  a  scold,  but  seldom 
a  slattern— his  children  ill  taught,  but  well 
apparelled.  Much  of  this  is  observable  even 
among  the  worst  of  the  class ;  and,  no  doubt, 
such  things  must  alsn  have  their  effect  in 
tempering  and  restraining  excesses.  Where- 
as, on  the  other  hand,  the  house  of  a  well- 
behaved,  well-doing  English-  villatrer  is  a 
perfect  model  of  comfort  and  propriety.  In 
Scotland,  the  houses  of  the  dissolute  are  alwavs 
dens  of  din,  and  disorder,  and  distraction.  All 
ordmary  goings-on  are  inextricably  confused 
—meals  eaten  in  different  nooks,  nnd  at  no  re- 
gular hour— nothing  in  its  right  place  or  time 
—the  whole  abode  as  if  on  the  eve  of  a  flittin-  • 
wnile,  with  few  exceptions,  even  in  the  dw.-Il- ! 
ings  of  the  best  families  in  the  village,  one  may  ' 
detect  occasional  forgetfulness  of  triilin'-  mat-' 
ters,  that,  if  remembered,  would  be  7ound 
greatly  conducive  to  comfort— occasional  in- 
sensibilities to  what  would  be  graceful  in  their 
condition,  and  might  be  secured  at  little  ex- 
pense and  less  trouble— occasional  blindness 
tr.  minute  deformities  that  mar  the  aspect  of  the 


household,  and  which  an  awakened  eye  would 
sweep  away  as  absolute  nuisances.  Perhaps 
the  very  depth  of  their  affections — the  solem- 
nity of  their  religious  thought — and  the  re- 
flective spirit  in  which  they  carry  on  the 
warfare  of  life — hide  from  them  the  percep- 
tion of  what,  after  all,  is  of  such  very  inferior 
moment,  and  even  create  a  sort  of  austerity 
of  character  which  makes  them  disregard,  too 
much,  trifles  that  appear  to  have  no  influence 
or  connection  with  the  essence  of  weal  or  wo. 
Yet  if  there  be  any  truth  in  this,  it  affords,  we 
confess,  an  explanation  rather  than  a  justifi- 
cation. 

Our  business  at  present,  however,  is  rather 
with  single  Cottages  than  with  villages.  We 
Scottish  people  have,  for  some  years  past,  been 
doing  all  we  could  to  make  ourselves  ridicu- 
lous, by  claiming  for  our  capital  the  name  of 
Model  a  .\thens,  and  talking  all  manner  of 
nonsense  about  a  city  which  stands  nobly  on 
its  own  proper  foundation;  while  we  have 
kept  our  mtiuths  comparatively  shut  about  the 
beauty  of  our  hills  and  vales,  and  the  rational 
happiness  that  everywhere  overflows  our  na- 
tive land.  Our  chamcter  is  to  be  found  in  the 
C(Uintry;  and  therefore,  gentle  reader,  behold 
along  with  us  a  specimen  of  Scottish  scenery. 
It  is  not  above  some  four  miles  long — its 
breadth  somewhere  about  a  third  of  its  length; 
a  fair  oblong,  sheltered  and  secluded  by  a  line 
of  varied  einiiienccs,  on  some  of  which  lies  the 
power  of  cultivation,  and  over  others  the  vivid 
verdure  peculiar  to  a  pastoral  region;  while, 
telling  of  disturbed  times  past  for  ever,  stand 
yoniler  the  nuns  of  an  f)ld  fortalice  or  keep, 
picturesque  in  its  deserted  decay.  The  plough 
has  stopped  at  the  edge  of  the  profitable  and 
beautiful  coppice-woods,  and  encircled  the  tall 
elm-grove.  The  rocky  pasturage,  with  its  do- 
very  and  daisied  turf,  is  alive  with  sheep  and 
cattle — its  briery  knolls  with  birds — its  broom 
and  whins  with  bees — and  its  wimpling  burn 
with  trouts  and  minnows  glancing  through  the 
shallows,  or  leaping  among  the  cloud  of  in- 
serts that  glitter  over  its  pools.  Here  and 
there  a  cottage — not  above  twenty  in  all — one 
low  down  in  the  holm,  another  on  a  cliff  beside 
the  waterfall:  that  is  the  mill — another  break-" 
ing  the  horizon  in  its  more  ambitiou!»-stalion — 
and  another  far  up  at  the  hill-foot,  where  there 
is  not  a  single  tree,  only  shrubs  and  brackens. 
On  a  bleak  day,  there  is  but  little  beauty  in 
such  a  ijlen ;  but  when  the  sun  is  cloudless, 
and  all  the  light  serene,  it  is  a  plarr;  where 
poet  or  painter  may  see  visions,  and  dream 
lireams,  of  the  very  a^e  of  gold.  At  such  sea- 
sons, there  is  a  homefelt  feeling  of  humble  re- 
ality, blending  with  the  emotions  of  imagina- 
tion. In  such  pinces.  the  low-born,  high-souled 
poets  of  old  breathed  forth  their  songs,  and 
hymns,  and  elegies — the  undying  lyrical  poetry 
of  the  heart  of  Scotland. 

Take  the  remotest  cottage  first  in  order, 
Hn.i.K(niT,  and  hear  who  are  its  inmates — the 
Schoolmaster  and  his  spouse.  The  school- 
house  stand-  on  a  little  unappropriated  piece 
of  ground — at  least  it  seems  to  be  so — quite  at 
the  head  of  the  glen ;  for  there  the  hills  sink 
down  on  each  side,  and  afford  an  easy  access 
to  the  scat  of  learning  from  two  neighbouring 


COTTAGES. 


61 


vales,  both  in  the  same  parish.  Perhaps  fifty 
scholars  are  there  tanghl — and  with  their  small 
fees,  and  his  small  salary,  Allan  Easton  is  con- 
tented. Allan  was  originally  intended  for  the 
Church;  but  some  peccadilloes  obstructed  his 
progress  with  the  Presbytery,  and  he  never 
was  a  preacher.  That  disappointment  of  all 
his  hopes  was  for  many  years  grievously  felt, 
and  somewhat  soured  his  mind  with  the  world. 
It  is  often  impossible  to  recover  one  single 
false  step  in  the  slippery  road  of  life — and  Al- 
lan Easton,  year  after  year,  saw  himself  falling 
farther  and  farther  into  the  rear  of  almost  all 
his  contemporaries.  One  became  a  minister, 
and  got  a  manse,  with  a  stipend  of  twenty 
chalders;  another  grew  into  an  East  India 
Nabob ;  one  married  the  laird's  widow,  and 
kept  a  pack  of  hounds  ;  another  expanded  into 
a  colonel;  one  cleared  a  plum  by  a  cotton- 
mill  ;  another  became  the  Croesus  of  a  bank — 
while  Allan,  who  had  beat  them  all  hollow  at 
all  the  classes,  wore  second-hand  clothes,  and 
lived  on  the  same  fare  with  llie  poorest  hind  in 
the  parish.  He  had  married,  rather  too  late, 
the  partner  of  his  frailties — and  after  many 
trials,  and,  as  he  Ihnught,  net  a  few  persecu- 
tions, he  got  settled  at  last,  when  his  head,  not 
very  old,  was  getting  gray,  and  his  face  some- 
what wrinkled.  His  wife,  during  his  worst 
poverty,  had  gone  again  into  service — the  lot, 
indeeil,  to  which  she  had  been  born  ;  and  Allan 
had  struggled  and  starved  upon  private  teach- 
ing. His  appointment  to  the  parish-school 
had,  therefore,  been  to  them  both  a  blessed 
elevation.  The  oflice  was  respectable — and 
loftier  ambition  had  long  been  dead.  IS'ow 
they  arc  old  people — consideral)ly  upwards  of 
sixty — and  twenty  years'  professional  life  have 
converted  Allan  Easton,  once  the  wild  and 
eccentric  genius,  into  a  staid,  solemn,  formal, 
and  pedantic  pedagogue.  All  his  scholars 
love  him,  for  even  in  the  discharge  of  such 
ver)'  humble  duties,  talents  make  themselves 
felt  and  respected;  and  the  kindness  of  an 
aflectionatc  and  once  sorely  wounded  but  now 
healed  lieart,  is  never  lost  upon  tlie  susceptible 
imaginations  of  the  young.  .Mian  has  some- 
times sent  out  no  contemptible  scholars,  as 
scholars  go  in  Scotland,  to  the  universities; 
and  his  heart  has  warmed  within  him  when  he 
has  read  their  names,  in  the  newspaper  from 
the  manse,  in  the  list  of  successful  competitors 
for  prizes.  During  vacation-time,  Allan  and 
his  spouse  leave  their  cottage  locked  up,  and 
disappear,  none  know  exactly  whither,  on 
visits  to  an  old  friend  or  two,  who  have  not 
altogether  forgotten  them  in  their  obscurit)'. 
During  the  rest  of  the  year,  his  only  out-of- 
doors  amusement  is  an  afternoon's  angling,  an 
art  in  which  it  is  universally  allowed  he  excels 
all  mortal  men,  both  in  river  and  loch;  and 
often,  during  the  long  winter  nights,  when  the 
shepherd  is  walking  by  his  dwelling,  to  visit 
his  "  ain  lassie,"  down  the  burn,  he  hears 
Allan's  fiddle  playing,  in  the  solitary  silence, 
some  one  of  those  Scottish  melodies,  that  we 
know  not  whether  it  be  cheerful  or  plaintive, 
but  soothing  to  every  heart  that  has  been  at  all 
acquainted  with  grief.  Rumour  says  too,  bat 
rumour  has  not  a  scrupulous  conscience,  that 
the  Schoolmaster,  when  he  meets  with  plca-int 


company,  either  at  home  or  a  friend's  house, 
is  not  averse  to  a  hospitable  cup,  and  that  then 
the  memories  of  other  days  crowd  upon  his 
brain,  and  loosen  his  tongue  into  eloquence. 
Old  Susan  keeps  a  sharp  warning  eye  upon 
her  husband  on  all  such  occasions ;  but  Allan 
braves  its  glances,  and  is  forgiven. 

We  see  only  the  uncertain  glimmer  of  their 
dwelling  through  the  low-lying  mist:  and 
therefore  we  cannot  describe  it,  as  if  it  were 
clearly  before  our  eyes.  But  should  you  ever 
chance  to  angle  your  way  up  to  Hillfoot,  ad- 
mire Allan  Easton's  flower-garden,  and  the 
jargonel  pear-tree  on  the  southern  gable.  The 
climate  is  somewhat  high,  but  it  is  not  cold; 
and,  except  when  the  spring-frosts  come  late 
ahd  sharp,  there  do  all  blossoms  and  fruits 
abound,  on  every  shrub  and  tree  native  to 
Scotland.  You  will  hardly  know  how  to  dis- 
tinguish— or  rather,  to  speak  in  clerkly  phrase, 
to  analyze  the  sound  prevalent  over  the  fields 
and  air;  for  it  is  made  np  of  that  of  the  burn, 
of  bees,  of  old  Susan's  wheel,  and  the  hum  of 
the  busy  school.  Hut  now  it  is  the  play-hour, 
and  Allan  Easton  comes  into  his  kitchen  for 
his  frugal  dinner.  Brush  up  your  Latin,  and 
out  with  a  few  of  the  largest  trouts  in  your 
pannier.  Susan  fries  them  in  fresh  butter  and 
oatmeal — the  grayhaired  pedagogue  asks  a 
blessing — and  a  merrier  man,  within  the  limits 
of  becoming  mirth,  you  never  passed  an  hour's 
talk  withal.  So  much  for  Allan  Easton  and 
Susan  his  spouse. 

You  look  as  if  you  wished  to  ask  who  in- 
habits the  Cottage — on  the  left  hand  yonder — 
that  stares  upon  us  with  four  front  windows, 
and  pricks  up  its  ears  like  a  new-started  harel 
Why,  sir,  that  was  once  a  Shooting-box.  It 
was  built  about  twenty  years  ago,  by  a  sport- 
ing gentleman  of  two  excellent  double-bar- 
relled guns,  and  three  stanch  pointers.  He 
attempted  to  live  there,  several  times,  from 
the  12th  of  August  till  the  end  of  September, 
and  went  pluffing  disconsolately  among  the 
hills  from  sunrise  to  sunset.  He  has  been 
long  dead  and  buried;  and  the  Box,  they  say, 
is  now  haunted.  It  has  been  attempted  to  be 
let  furnished,  and  there  is  now  a  board  to  that 
effect  hung  out  like  an  escutcheon.  Pictur- 
esque people  say  it  ruins  the  whole  beauty  of 
the  glen ;  but  we  must  not  think  so,  fi)r  it  is 
not  in  the  power  of  the  ugliest  house  that  ever 
was  built  to  do  that,  although,  to  effect  such  a 
purpose,  it  is  unquestionably  a  skilful  contci- 
vance.  The  window-shutters  have  been  closed 
for  several  years,  and  the  chimneys  look  as  if 
they  had  breathed  their  last.  It  stands  in  a 
perpetual  eddv,  and  the  ground  shelves  so  all 
around  it,  that  there  is  barely  room  for  a  bar- 
rel to  catch  the  rain-drippings  from  the  slate- 
eaves.  If  it  be  indeed  haunted,  pity  the  poor 
ghost !  You  may  have  it  on  a  lease,  short  or 
long,  for  merely  paying  the  taxes.  Every  yeat 
it  costs  some  pounds  in  advertisement.  What 
a  jointure-house  it  would  be  for  a  relict !  By 
name,  Windy-knowk. 

Nay,  let  us  not  fear  to  sketch  the  character 
of  its  "last  inhabitant,  for  we  desire  but  to  speak 
the  truth.  Drunkard,  stand  forward,  that  we 
may  have  a  look  at  you,  and  draw  your  pic 
ture.     There  he  stands!     The  mouth  of  iho 


63 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


drunkard,  you  may  observe,  contracts  a  sin- 
gularly sensitive  appearance — seemingly  red 
and  rawish ;  and  he  is  perpetually  licking  or 
smacking  his  lips,  as  if  his  palate  were  dry 
and  adust.  His  is  a  thirst  that  water  will  not 
quench.  He  might  as  well  drink  air.  His 
whole  being  burns  for  a  dram.  The  whole 
world  is  contracted  into  a  caulker.  He  would 
sell  his  soul  in  such  extremity,  were  the  black 
bottle  denied  him,  for  a  gulp.  Not  to  save  his 
soul  from  eternal  fire,  would  he,  or  rather 
could  he,  if  left  alone  with  it,  refrain  from  pull- 
ing out  the  plug,  and  sucking  away  at  destruc- 
tion. What  a  snout  he  turns  up  to  the  morning 
air,  intiamed,  pimpled,  snubby,  and  snorty,  and 
with  a  nob  at  the  end  on't  like  one  carved  out 
of  a  stick  by  the  knife  of  a  schoolboy — rough 
and  hot  to  the  very  eye — a  nose  which,  rather 
than  pull,  you  would  submit  even  to  be  in 
some  degree  insulted.  A  perpetual  cough  ha- 
rasses and  exhausts  him,  and  a  perpetual  ex- 
pectoration. How  his  hand  trembles !  It  is 
an  effort  even  to  sign  his  name:  one  of  his 
sides  is  certainly  not  by  any  means  as  sound 
as  the  other;  there  has  been  a  touch  of  palsy 
there;  and  the  next  hint  will  draw  down  his 
chin  to  his  collar-bone,  and  convert  him,  a 
month  before  dissolution,  into  a  slavering 
idiot.  There  is  no  occupation,  small  or  great, 
insignificant  or  important,  to  which  he  can 
turn,  for  any  length  of  time,  his  hand,  his 
heart,  or  his  head.  He  cannot  angle — for  his 
fingers  refuse  to  tie  a  knot,  much  more  to  busk 
a  fly.  The  glimmer  and  the  glow  of  the  stream 
would  make  his  brain  dizzy — to  wet  his  feet 
r.ow  would,  he  fears,  be  death.  Yet  he  thinks 
that  he  will  go  out — during  that  sunny  blink 
of  a  showery  day — and  try  the  well-known 
pool  in  which  he  used  to  bathe  in  boyhood, 
with  the  long,  matted,  green-trailin?  water- 
plants  depending  on  the  slippery  rocks,  and 
the  water-ousel  gliding  from  beneath  the  arch 
that  hides  her  "  procreant  cradle,"  and  then 
sinking  like  a  stone  suddenly  in  the  limpid 
stream.  He  sits  down  on  the  bank,  and  fum- 
bling in  his  pouch  for  his  pocket-book,  brings 
out,  instead,  a  pocket-pistol.  Turning  his  fiery 
face  towards  the  mild,  blue,  vernal  skv,  he 
pours  the  gurgling  brandy  down  his  throat- 
first  one  dose,  and  then  another — till,  in  an 
hour,  stupefied  and  dazed,  he  sees  not  the  sil- 
very crimson-spotted  trouts,  shooting,  and 
leaping,  and  tumbling,  and  plunging  in  deep 
and  shallow;  a  day  on  which,  with  one  of 
Captain  CoHey's  March-Browns,  in  an  hour 
we  could  fill  our  pannier.  Or,  if  it  be  autumn 
or  wmter,  he  calls,  perhaps,  with  a  voice  at 
once  gruff  and  feeble,  on  old  Ponto,  and  will 
take  a  pluff  at  the  partridges.  In  former  days, 
down  they  used  to  go,  right  and  left,  in  potaioe 
or  turnip-field,  broomy  brae  or  stubble — but 
now  his  sight  is  dim  and  wavering,  and  his 
touch  trembles  on  the  trigger.  The  covev 
whirs  off,  unharmed  in  a  single  feather— and 
po(.r  Ponto,  remembering  better  days,  cannot 
conceal  his  melancholy,  falls  in  at  his  master's 
heel,  and  will  range  no  more.  Out,  as  usual, 
comes  the  brandy-bottle- he  is  still  a  good 
shot  when  his  mouth  is  the  mark ;  and  havin'- 
emptied  the  fatal  flask,  he  staggers  homewards, 
"With  the  muzzles  of   his   double-barrel  fre- 


quently pointed  to  his  ear,  both  being  on  full 
cock,  and  his  brains  not  blown  out  only  by  a 
miracle.  He  tries  to  read  the  newspaper — 
just  arrived — but  cannot  find  his  spectacles. 
Then,  by  way  of  variety,  he  attempts  a  tune 
on  the  fiddle ;  but  the  bridge  is  broken,  and 
j  her  side  cracked,  and  the  bass-string  snapped 
— and  she  is  restored  to  her  peg  among  the 
cobwebs.  In  comes  a  red-headed,  stockingless 
lass,  with  her  carrots  in  papers,  and  lays  the 
cloth  for  dinner — salt  beef  and  greens.  But 
the  Major's  stomach  scunners  at  the  Skye-stot 
— his  eyes  roll  eagerly  for  the  hot-water — and 
in  a  couple  of  hours  he  is  dead-drunk  in  his 
chair,  or  stoitering  and  staggering,  in  aimless 
dalliance  with  the  scullion,  among  the  pots  and 
pans  of  an  ever-disorderly  and  dirty  kitchen. 
Mean  people,  in  shabby  sporting  velveteen 
dresses,  rise  up  as  he  enters  from  the  dresser 
covered  with  cans,  jugs,  and  quechs,  and  take 
off  their  rusty  and  greasy  napless  hats  to  the 
Major;  and,  to  conclude  the  day  worthily  and 
consistently,  he  squelches  himself  down 
among  the  reprobate  crew,  takes  his  turn  at 
smutty  jest  and  smuttier  song,  which  drive 
even  the  jade«  out  of  the  kitchen — falls  back 
insensible,  exposed  to  gross  and  indecent 
practical  jokes  from  the  vilest  of  the  unhanged 
— and  finally  is  carried  to  bed  on  a  hand-bar- 
row, with  hanging  head  and  heels,  like  a  calf 
across  a  butcher's  cart,  and,  with  glazed  eyes 
and  lolling  tongue,  is  tumbled  upon  the  quilt 
— if  ever  to  awake  it  is  extremely  doubtful ; 
but  if  awake  he  do,  it  is  to  the  same  wretched 
round  of  brutal  degradation — a  career,  of 
which  the  inevitable  close  is  an  unfriended 
death-bed  and  a  pauper's  grave.  O  hero  !  six 
feet  high,  and  onf^  with  a  brawn  like  Hercu- 
les— in  the  prime  of  life  too^well  born  and 
well  bred — once  bearing  the  king's  commis- 
sion— and  on  that  glorious  morn,  now  forgot- 
ten or  bitterly  remembered,  thanked  on  the 
field  of  ballle  by  Picton,  though  he  of  the  fight- 
ing division  was  a  hero  of  few  words — is  that 
a  death  worthy  of  a  man — a  soldier — and  a 
Christian?  A  dram-drinker!  Faugh!  faugh! 
j  Look  over — lean  over  that  stile,  where  a  pig 
lies  wallowing  in  mire — and  a  voice,  faint  and 
feeble,  and  far  off,  as  if  it  came  from  some 
dim  and  remote  world  within  your  lost  soul 
will  cry,  that  of  the  two  beasts,  thai  bristly  one, 
agrunt  in  sensual  sleep,  with  its  snout  snoring 
\  across  the  husk  trough,  is,  as  a  physical,  moral 
j  and  intellectual  being,  superior  to  you,  late 

[  Major  in  his  Majesty's regiment  of  foot, 

:  now  dram-drinker,  drunkard,  and  dotard,  and 
!  self-doomed   to  a  disgraceful   and  disgusting 
i  death   ere    you   shall    have   completed   your 
thirtieth  j-ear.     What  a  changed  being  from 
;  that  day  when  you  carried  the  colours,  and 
I  were  found,  the  bravest  of  the  brave,  and  the 
most  beautiful  of  the  beautiful,  with  the  glori- 
,  ous  tatters  wrapped  round  your  body  all  drench- 
ed in  blood,  your  hand  grasping  the  broken 
sabre,  and  two  grim  Frenchmen  lying  hacked 
and  hewed  at  your  feet !     Your  father  and  your 
mother  saw  your  name  in  the  "Great  Lord's" 
Despatch ;  and  it  was  as  much  as  he  could  do  to 
keep  her  from  falling  on  the  floor,  for  "  her  joy 
was  like  a  deep  affright !"  Both  are  dead  now; 
and  better  so,  for  the  sight  of  that  blotched 


COTTAGES. 


63 


face  and  those  glazed  eyes,  now  and  then 
glittering  in  fitful  frenzy,  would  have  killed 
them  both,  nor,  after  such  a  spectacle,  could 
their  old  bones  have  rested  in  the  grave. 

Alas,   Scotland — ay,   well-educated,    moral, 
religious  Scotland  can  show,  in  the  bosom  of 
her  bonny  banks  and  braes,  cases  worse  than 
this  ;  at  which,  if  there  be  tears  in  heaven,  the 
angels  weep.     Look  at  that  grayheaded  man, 
of  threescore  and  upwards,  sitting  by  the  way- 
side !     He  was  once  an  Elder  of  the  Kirk,  and 
a  pious  man  he  was,  if  ever  piety  adorned  the 
temples — "  the  lyart  haffets,  wearing  thin  and 
bare,"  of  a  Scottish  peasant.     What  eye  be- 
held the  many  hundred  steps,  that  one  by  one, 
with  imperceptible  gradation,  led  him  down — 
down — down  to  the  lowest  depths  of  shame, 
suffering,  and  ruin  1     For  years  before  it  was 
bruited  abroad  through  the  parish  that  Gabriel 
Mason  was  addicted  to  drink,  his  wife  used  to 
sit  weeping  alone  in  the  spence  when  her  sons 
and  daughters  were  out  at  their  work  in  the 
fields,  and  the   infatuated  man,  fierce  in  the 
excitement  of  raw  ardent  spirits,  kept  cause- 
lessly raging  and  storming  through  every  nook 
of  that  once  so  peaceful  tenement,  which  for 
many  happy  years  had  never  been  disturbed 
by  the  loud  voice  of  anger  or  reproach.     His 
eyes  were  seldom  turned  on  his  unhappy  wife 
except  with  a  sullen   scowl,  or  fiery  wrath; 
but  when  they  did  look  on  her  with  kindness, 
there  was  also  a  rueful  self-upbraiding  in  their 
expression,  on  account  of  his  cruelty;  and  at 
sight  of  such  transitory  tenderness,  her  heart 
would  overflow  with  forgiving  affection,  and 
her  sunk  eyes  with  unendurable  tears.     But 
neither  domestic  sin  nor  domestic  sorrow  will 
conceal  from  the  eyes  and  the  ears  of.men ; 
and  at  last  Gabriel  Mason's  name  was  a  by- 
word in   the  mouth  of  the  scofler.     One  Sab- 
bath he  entered  the  kirk  in  a  slate  of  miserable 
abandonment,  and  from  that  day  he  was  no 
longer   an   elder.     To   regain    his   character 
seemed  to  him,  in  his  desperation,  beyond  the 
power  of  man,  and  against  the  decree  of  God. 
80  he  delivered  himself  up,  like  a  slave,  to 
that  one  appetite,  and  in  a  few  years  his  whole 
household  had  gone  to  destruction.     His  wife 
was  a  matron,  almost  in  the  prime  of  life, 
when  she  died ;  but  as  she  kept  wearing  away 
to  the  other  world,  her  face  told  that  she  felt 
her  years  had  been  too  many  in  this.     Her 
eldest  son,  unable,  in  pride  and  shame,  to  lift 
up  his  eyes  at  kirk  or  market,  went  away  to 
the  city,  and  enlisted  into  a  regiment  about  to 
embark  on  foreign  service.     His  two  sisters 
went  to  take  farewell  of  him,  but  never  re- 
turned ;  one,  it  is  said,  having  died  of  a  fever 
in   the  Infirmary,  just  as  if  she  had  been  a 
pauper ;  and  the  other — for  the  sight  of  sin, 
and  sorrow,  and  shame,  and  suffering,  is  ruin- 
ous to  the  soul — gave  herself  up,  in  her  beauty, 
an  easy  prey  to  a  destroyer,  and  doubtless  has 
run  her  course  of  agonies,  and  is  now  at  peace. 
The  rest  of  the  family  dropt  down,  one  by  one, 
out  of  sight,  into  inferior  situations  in  far-off 
places ;  but  there  was  a  curse,  it  was  thought, 
hanging  over  the  family,  and  of  none  of  them 
did  ever  a  favourable  report  come  to  their  na- 
tive parish;  while  he,  the  infatuated  sinner, 
whose  vice  seemed  to  have  worked  all  the  wo, 


remained  in  the  chains  of  his  tyrannical  pas- 
sion, nor  seemed  ever,  for  more  than  the  short 
term  of  a  day,  to  cease  hugging  them  to  his 
heart.  Semblance  of  all  that  is  most  venera- 
ble in  the  character  of  Scotland's  peasantry ! 
Image  of  a  perfect  patriarch,  walking  out  to 
meditate  at  eventide !  What  a  noble  fore- 
head !  Features  how  high,  dignified,  and  com- 
posed !  There,  sitting  in  the  shade  of  that  old 
wayside  tree,  he  seems  some  religious  Mis- 
sionary, travelling  to  and  fro  over  the  face  of 
the  earth,  seeking  oiit  sin  and  sorrow,  that  he 
may  tame  them  under  the  word  of  God,  and 
change  their  very  being  into  piety  and  peace. 
Call  him  not  a  hoary  hypocrite,  for  he  cannot 
help  that  noble — that  venerable — that  aposto- 
lic aspect — that  dignified  figure,  as  if  bent 
gently  by  Time,  loath  to  touch  it  with  too 
heavy  a  hand — that  holy  sprinkling  over  his 
furrowed  temples  of  the  silver-soft,  and  the 
snow-white  hair — these  are  the  gifts  of  gra- 
cious Nature  all — and  Nature  will  not  reclaim 
them,  but  in  the  tomb.  That  is  Gabriel  Mason 
— the  Drunkard !  And  in  an  hour  you  may, 
if  your  eyes  can  bear  the  sight,  see  and  hear 
him  staggering  up  and  down  the  village,  curs- 
ing, swearing,  preaching,  praying — stoned  by 
blackguard  boys  and  girls,  who  hound  all  the 
dogs  and  curs  at  his  heels,  till,  taking  refuge 
in  the  smithy  or  the  pot-house,  he  becomes  the 
sport  of  grown  clowns,  and,  after  much  idiot 
laughter,  ruefully  mingled  with  sighs,  ani 
groans,  and  tears,  he  is  suffered  to  mount  upon 
a  table,  and  urged,  perhaps,  by  reckless  folly 
to  give  out  a  text  from  the  Bible,  which  is 
nearly  all  engraven  on  his  memory — so  much 
and  so  many  other  things  effaced  for  ever — 
and  there,  like  a  wild  Itinerant,  he  stammers 
forth  unintentional  blasphemy,  till  the  liquor 
he  has  been  allowed  or  instigated  to  swallow, 
smites  him  suddenly  senseless,  and,  falling 
down,  he  is  huddled  off  into  a  corner  of  some 
lumber-room  ;  and  left  to  sleep — better  far  for 
such  a  wretch  were  it  to  death. 

Let  us  descend,  then,  from  that  most  incle- 
ment front,  into  the  lown  boundaries  of  the 
Holm.  The  farm-steading  covers  a  goodly 
portion  of  the  peninsula  shaped  by  the  burn, 
that  here  looks  almost  like  a  river.  With  its 
outhouses  it  forms  three  sides  of  a  square,  and 
the  fourth  is  composed  of  a  set  of  jolly  stacks, 
that  will  keep  the  thrashing-machine  at  work 
during  all  the  winter.  The  interior  of  the 
square  rejoices  in  a  glorious  dung-hill,  (Oh, 
breathe  not  the  name  I)  that  will  cover  every 
field  with  luxuriant  harvests — twelve  bolls  of 
oats  to  the  acre.  There  the  cattle — oxen  yet 
"  lean,  and  lank,  and  brown  as  is  the  ribbed 
sea-sand,"  will,  in  a  ftw  months,  eat  them- 
selves up,  on  straw  and  turnip,  into  obesity. 
There  turkeys  walk  demure — there  geese  wad- 
dle, and  there  the  feathery-legged  king  of 
Bantam  struts  among  his  seraglio,  keeping 
pertly  aloof  from  double-combed  Chanticleer, 
that  squire  of  dames,  crowing  to  his  partlets. 
There  a  cloud  of  pigeons  often  descends 
among  the  corny  chaff,  and  then  whirs  ofi^  to 
the  uplands.  No  chained  mastiff  looking 
grimly  from  the  kennel's  mouth,  but  a  set  of 
cheerful  and  sagacuus  colleys  are  seen  sit- 
ting on  their  hurdies,  or  "worrying  ilher  in 


64 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


diversion."  A  snagg)'  colt  or  two,  and  a 
brood  mare,  with  a  spice  of  blood,  and  a  foal 
at  her  heels,  know  their  shed,  and  evidently 
are  favourites  with  the  family.  Out  comes 
the  master,  a  rosy-cheeked  carle,  upwards  of 
six  feet  high,  broad-shouldered,  with  a  blue 
bonnet  and  velveteen  breeches — a  man  not  to 
be  jostled  on  the  crown  o'  the  causey,  and  a 
match  for  any  horse-couper  from  Bewcastle, 
or  gipsy  from  Yetholm.  But  let  us  into  the 
kitchen.  There's  the  wife — a  bit  tidy  bodj' — 
and  pretty  withal — more  authoritative  in  her 
quiet  demeanour  than  the  most  tyrannical 
mere  housekeeper  that  ever  thumped  a  ser- 
vant lass  with  the  beetle.  These  three  are  her 
daughters.  First,  Girzie,  the  eldest,  seemingly 
older  than  her  mother — for  she  is  somewhat 
hard-favoured,  and  strong  red  hair  dangling 
over  a  squint  eye,  is  apt  to  give  an  expression 
of  advanced  years,  even  to  a  5"outhful  virgin. 
Vaccination  was  not  known  in  Girzie's  baby- 
hood, but  she  is,  nevertheless,  a  clean-skinned 
creature,  and  her  full  bosom  is  white  as  snow. 
She  is  what  is  delicately  called  a  strapper, 
rosy-armed  as  the  morning,  and  not  a  little  of 
an  Aurora  about  the  ankles.  She  makes  her 
way,  in  all  household  affairs,  through  every 
impediment,  and  will  obviously  prove,  when- 
ever the  experiment  is  made,  a  most  excellent 
■wife.  Mysie,  the  second  daughter,  is  more 
composed,  more  genteel,  and  sits  sewing,  with 
her  a  favourite  occupation,  for  she  has  very 
neat  hands;  and  is,  in  fact,  the  milliner  and 
mantua-makcr  for  all  the  house.  She  could 
no  more  lift  that  enormous  pan  of  boiling 
water  off  the  fire  than  she  could  fly,  which  in 
the  grasp  of  Girzie  is  safely  landed  on  the 
hearth.  Mysie  has  somewhat  of  a  pensive 
look,  as  if  in  love — and  we  have  heard  that 
she  is  betrothed  to  young  Mr.  Rentoul,  the  di- 
vinity student,  who  lately  made  a  speech  be- 
fore the  Anti-patronage  Societ)',  and  therefore 
may  reasonably  expect  very  soon  to  get  a 
kirk.  But  look — there  comes  dancing  in  from 
the  ewe-bughts  the  bright-eyed  Bessy,  the 
flower  of  the  flock,  the  most  beautiful  girl  in 
Almondale,  and  fit  to  be  bosom-burd  Of  the 
Gentle  Shepherd  himself!  Oh  that  we  were  a 
poet,  to  sing  the  innocence  of  her  budding 
breast!  But — Heaven  preserve  us! — what  is 
the  angelic  creature  about?  Making  rumblc- 
de-thumps !  Now  she  pounds  the"  potatoes 
and  cabbages  as  with  pestle  and  mortar! 
Ever  and  anon  licking  the  butter  off  her  fin- 
gers, and  then  dashing  in  the  salt !  Mcthinks 
her  laugh  is  out  of  all  bounds  loud— and.  un- 
less my  eyes  deceived  me,  tiiat  stout  lout 
whispered  in  her  delicate  ear  some  coarse 
jest,  that  made  the  eloquent  blood  mount  up 
into  her  not  undelighted  countenance.  Hea- 
vens and  earth !— perhaps  an  assignation  in 
the  barn,  or  byre,  or  bush  aboon^Traquair. 
But  the  long  dresser  is  set  out  with  dinner— 
the  gudeman's  bonnet  is  reverently  laid  aside 
-and  if  any  stomach  assembled  tliere  be  now 
empty,  U  is  not  likely,  judging  from  appear- 
ances, that  a  will  be  in  that  state  again  before 
next  Sabbath— and  it  is  now  but  the  middle 
of  the  week.  Was  it  not  my  Lord  Bvron  who 
liked  not  to  see  women  eat!  Poo— poo non- 
sense !     We  like  to  see  them  not  only  eat- 


but  devour.  Not  a  set  of  teeth  round  that 
kitchen-dresser  that  is  not  white  as  the  driven 
snow.  Breath  too,  in  spite  of  syboes,  sweet 
as  dawn-dew — the  whole  female  frame  full 
of  health,  freshness,  spirit,  and  animation ! 
Away  all  delicate  wooers,  thrice-high-fantasti- 
cal !  The  diet  is  wholesome — and  the  sleep 
will  be  sound  ;  therelbre  eat  away,  Bessy — 
nor  fear  to  laugh,  although  your  pretty  mouth 
be  full — for  we  are  no  poet  to  madden  into 
misanthropy  at  your  mastication  ;  and,  in  spite 
of  the  heartiest  meal  ever  virgin  ate,  to  us 
these  lips  are  roses  still,  "  thy  ej-es  are  lode- 
stars, and  thy  breath  sweet  air."  Would  for 
thy  sake  we  had  been  born  a  shepherd-groom  ! 
No — no — no!  For  some  few  joyous  years 
mayest  thou  wear  thy  silken  snood  unharmed, 
and  silence  with  thy  songs  the  linnet  among 
the  broom,  at  the  sweet  hour  of  prime.  And 
then  mayesi  thou  plight  thy  truth — in  all  the 
warmth  of  innocence — to  some  ardent  yet 
thoughtful  youth,  who  will  carry  his  bride 
exullingly  to  his  own  low-roofed  home — toil 
for  her  and  the  children  at  her  knees,  through 
summer's  heat  and  winter's  cold — and  sit  with 
her  in  the  kirk,  when  long  j'ears  have  gone 
by,  a  comely  matron,  attended  by  daugliters 
acknowledged  to  be  fair — but  neither  so  fair, 
nor  so  good,  nor  so  pious,  as  their  mother. 

What  a  contrast  to  the  jocund  Hohn  is  the 
RowAX-TiiEE-HvT — so  still,  and  seemingly  so 
desolate!  It  is  close  upon  the  public  road, 
and  yet  so  low,  that  you  might  pass  il  without 
observing  its  lurf-roof.  There  live  old  Aggy 
Robinson,  the  carrier,  and  her  consumptive 
daughter.  Old  Aggy  has  borne  that  epithet 
for  twenty  years,  and  her  daughter  is  not  much 
undef  sixty.  That  poor  creature  is  bedridden 
and  helpless,  and  has  to  be  fed  almost  like  a 
child.  Old  Aggy  has  for  many  years  had  the 
same  white  pony — well  named  Samson — that 
she  drives  three  limes  a-wcek,  all  the  year 
round,  to  and  from  the  nearest  market-town, 
carrying  all  sorts  of  articles  to  nearly  twenty 
diflcrent  families,  living  miles  apart.  Every 
other  day  in  the  week — for  there  is  but  one 
Sabbath  either  to  herself  or  Samson — she 
drives  coals,  or  peat,  or  wood,  or  lime,  or 
stones  for  the  roads.  She  is  clothed  in  a  man's 
coat,  an  old  rusty  beaver,  and  a  red  petticoat. 
Aggy  never  was  a  beauty,  and  now  she  is  al- 
most frightful,  with  a  formidable  beard,  and  a 
rough  voice — and  violent  gestures,  encourag- 
ing tjie  overladen  enemy  of  the  Philistines. 
But  as  soon  as  she  enters  her  hut,  she  is  silent, 
patient,  and  affectionate,  at  her  daughterslbed- 
side.  They  sleep  on  the  same  chaff-mattress, 
and  she  hears,  during  the  dead  of  the  night, 
her  daughter's  slightest  moan.  Her  voice  is 
not  rough  at  all  when  the  poor  old  creature  is 
saying  her  prayers;  nor,  we  may  be  well  as- 
sured, is  its  lowest  whisper  unheard  in  hea- 
ven. 

Your  eyes  are  wandering  away  to  the  eastern 
side  of  the  vale,  and  they  have  fixed  themselves 
on  the  Cottage  of  the  Seven  Oaks.  The  grove 
is  a  noble  one  ;  and,  indeed,  those  are  the  only 
timber-trees  in  the  valley.  There  is  a  tradition 
belonging  to  the  grove,  but  we  shall'tell  it  some 
other  time;  now,  we  have  to  do  with  that 
mean-looking  Cottage,  all  unworthy  of  such 


COTTAGES. 


65 


magnificent  shelter.  With  its  ragged  thatch 
it  has  a  cold  cheerless  look — almost  a  look  of 
indigence.  The  walls  are  sordid  in  the  streaked 
ochre-wash — a  wisp  of  straw  supplies  the 
place  of  a  broken  pane — the  door  seems  as  if 
it  were  inhospitable — and  every  object  about 
is  in  untended  disorder.  The  green  pool  in 
front,  with  its  floating  straws  and  feathers, 
and  miry  edge,  is  at  once  unhealthy  and  need- 
less ;  the  hedgerows  are  full  of  gaps,  and  open 
at  the  roots  ;  the  few  garments  spread  upon 
them  seem  to  have  stiffened  in  the  weather, 
forgotten  by  the  persons  who  placed  them 
there;  and  half-starved  young  cattle  are  stra)'- 
ing  about  in  what  once  was  a  garden.  Wretched 
sight  it  is ;  for  that  dwelling,  althoueh  never 
beautiful,  was  once  the  tidiest  and  best-kept 
in  all  the  district.  But  what  has  misery  to  do 
with  the  comfort  of  its  habitation  1 

The  owner  of  that  house  was  once  a  man 
well  to  do  in  the  world  ;  but  he  minded  this 
world's  goods  more  than  it  was  fitting  to  do, 
and  made  Mammon  his  god.  Abilities  he 
possessed  far  beyond  the  common  run  of  men, 
and  he  applied  them  all.  with  all  the  energy 
of  a  strong  mind,  to  the  accumulation  of  wealth. 
Every  rule  of  his  life  had  that  for  its  ultimate 
end  ;  and  he  despised  a  bargain  unless  he 
outwitted  his  neighbour.  Without  any  acts 
of  downright  knavery,  he  was  not  an  honest 
man — hard  to  the  poor — and  a  tyrannical 
master,  lie  sought  to  wring  from  the  very 
soil  more  than  it  could  produce;  his  servants, 
among  whom  were  his  wife  and  daughter,  he 
kept  at  work,  like  slaves,  from  twilight  to 
twilight;  and  was  a  forestaller  and  a  regrater 
— a  character  which,  when  Political  Economy 
was  unknown,  was  of  all  the  most  odious  in 
the  judgment  of  simple  husbandmen.  His 
spirits  rose  with  the  price  of  meal,  and  every 
handful  dealt  out  to  the  beggar  was  paid  like 
a  tax.  What  could  the  Bible  teach  to  such  a 
man  1  What  good  could  he  derive  from  the 
calm  air  of  the  house  of  worship]  He  sent 
his  only  son  to  the  city,  with  injunctions  in- 
stilled into  him  to  make  the  most  of  all  trans- 
actions, at  every  hazard  but  that  of  his  money ; 
and  the  consequence  was,  in  a  few  years,  shame, 
ruin,  and  expatriation.  His  only  daughter,  im- 
prisoned, dispirited,  enthralled,  fell  a  prey  to  a 
vulgar  seducer;  and  being  driven  from  her 
father's  house,  abandoned  herself,  in  hopeless 
misery,  to  a  life  of  prostitution.  His  wife, 
heartbroken  by  cruelly  and  affliction,  was 
never  afterwards  altogether  in  her  right  mind, 
and  now  sits  weeping  by  the  hearth,  or  wanders 
off  to  distant  places,  lone  houses  and  villages, 
almost  in  the  condition  of  an  idiot — wild-eyed, 
loose-haired,  and  dressed  like  a  very  beggar. 
Speculation  after  speculation  failed — with 
farm-yard  crowded  with  old  stacks,  he  had  to 
curse  three  successive  plentiful  harvests — and 
his  mailing  was  now  destitute.  The  unhappy 
man  grew  sour,  stern,  fierce,  in  his  calamity; 
and,  when  his  brain  was  inflamed  with  liquor, 
a  dangerous  madman.  He  is  now  a  sort  of 
cattle-dealer — buys  and  sells  miserable  horses 
• — and  at  fairs  associates  with  knaves  and  re- 
probates, knowing  that  no  honest  man  will 
deal  with  him  except  in  pity  or  derision.  He 
has  more  than  once  attempted  to  commit 
0 


suicide  ;  but  palsy  has  stricken  him — and  in  a 
few  weeks  he  will  totter  into  the  grave. 

There  is  a  Cottage  in  that  hollow,  and  you 
see  the  smoke — even  the  chimney-top,  but  you 
could  not  see  the  Cottage  itself,  unless  you 
were  within  fifty  yards  of  it,  so  surrounded  is 
it  with  knolls  and  small  green  eminences,  in  a 
den  of  its  own,  a  shoot  or  scion  from  the 
main  stem  of  the  valley.  It  is  called  The 
BRtMor,  and  there  is  something  singular,  and 
not  uninteresting,  in  the  history  of.  its  owner. 
He  married  very  early  in  life,  indeed  when 
quite  a  boy,  which  is  not,  by  the  way,  very 
unusual  among  the  peasantry  of  Scotland, 
prudent  and  calculating  as  is  their  general 
character.  David  Drysdale,  before  he  was 
thirty  years  of  age,  had  a  family  of  seven 
children,  and  a  pretty  family  they  were  as 
might  be  seen  in  all  the  parish.  His  life  was 
in  theirs,  and  his  mind  never  wandered  far 
from  his  fireside.  His  wife  was  of  a  consump- 
tive family,  and  that  insidious  and  fatal  disease 
never  showed  in  her  a  single  symptom  during 
ten  years  of  marriage;  but  one  cold  evening 
awoke  it  at  her  very  heart,  and  in  less  than 
two  months  it  hurried  her  into  the  grave. 
Poor  creature,  such  a  spectre!  When  her 
husband  used  to  carry  her,  for  the  sake  of  a  little 
temporary  relief,  from  chair  to  couch,  and 
frt)m  her  couch  back  again  to  her  bed,  twenty 
times  in  a  day,  he  hardly  could  help  weeping, 
with  all  his  consideration,  to  feel  her  frame  as 
light  as  a  bundle  of  leaves.  The  medical  man 
said,  that  in  all  his  practice  he  never  had 
known  soul  and  body  keep  together  in  such 
utter  attenuation.  But  her  soul  was  as  clear 
as  ever  while  racking  pain  was  in  her  flesh- 
less  bones.  Even  he,  her  loving  husband, 
was  relieved  from  wo  when  she  expired;  for 
no  sadness,  no  sorrow,  could  be  equal  to  the 
misery  of  groans  from  one  so  patient  and  so 
resigned.  Perhaps  consumption  is  infectious 
— so,  at  least,  it  seemed  here;  for  first  one 
child  began  to  droop,  and  then  another — the 
elder  ones  first;  and,  within  the  two  following 
years,  there  were  almost  as  many  funerals 
from  this  one  house  as  from  all  the  others  in 
the  parish.  Yes — they  all  died — of  the  whole 
family  not  one  was  spared.  Two,  indeed,  were 
thought  to  have  pined  away  in  a  sort  of  fear- 
ful foreboding — and  a  fever  took  off  a  third — 
but  four  certainly  died  of  the  same  hereditary 
complaint  with  the  mother;  and  now  not  a 
voice  was  heard  in  the  house.  He  did  not 
desert  the  Broom  ;  and  the  farm-work  -was  still 
carried  on,  nobody  could  tell  how.  The  ser- 
vants, to  be  sure,  knew  their  duty,  and  often 
performed  it  without  orders.  Sometimes  the 
master  put  his  hand  to  the  plough,  but  oftener 
he  led  the  life  of  a  shepherd,  and  was  by  him- 
self among  the  hills.  He  never  smiled — and 
at  every  meal  he  still  sat  like  a  man  about  to 
be  led  out  to  die.  But  what  will  not  retire 
away — recede — disappear  from  the  vision  of 
the  souls  of  us  mortals  !  Tenacious  as  we  art 
of  our  griefs,  even  more  than  of  our  joys,  both 
elude  our  grasp.  We  gaze  after  them  witlv 
longings  or  self-upbraiding  aspirations  for  their 
return ;  but  they  are  shadows,  and  like  shadows 
vanish.  Then  human  duties,  lowly  though, 
they  may  be,  have  their  sanative  and  salutary 


66 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


influence  on  ourwhole  frame  of  being.  Without 
their  performance  conscience  cannot  be  still; 
with  it,  conscience  brings  peace  in  extremity 
of  evil.  Then  occupation  kills  grief,  and  in- 
dustry abates  passion.  No  balm  for  sorrow 
like  the  sweat  of  the  brow  poured  into  the 
furrows  of  the  earth,  in  the  open  air,  and 
beneath  the  sunshine  of  heaven.  These  truths 
were  felt  by  the  childless  widower,  long  before 
they  were  understood  by  him ;  and  when  two 
years  had  gone  drearily,  ay  dismally,  almost 
despairingly,  by — he  began  at  times  to  leel 
something  like  happiness  again  when  sitting 
among  his  friends  in  the  kirk,  or  at  their  fire- 
sides, or  in  the  labours  of  the  field,  or  even 
on  the  market-day,  among  this  world's  con- 
cerns. Thus,  they  Avho  knew  him  and  his 
sufferings,  were  pleased  to  recognise  what 
might  be  called  resignation  and  its  grave 
tranquillity;  while  strangers  discerned  in  him 
nothing  more  than  a  staid  and  solemn  demean- 
our, which  might  be  natural  to  many  a  man 
never  severely  tried,  and  offering  no  interrup- 
tion to  the  cheerfulness  that  pervaded  iheir 
ordinary  life. 

He  had  a  cousin  a  few  years  younger  than 
himself,  who  had  also  married  when  a  girl,  and 
when  little  more  than  a  girl  had  been  left  a 
widow.  Her  parents  were  both  dead,  and  she 
had  lived  for  a  good  many  years  as  an  upper 
servant,  or  rather  companion  and  friend,  in  the 
house  of  a  relation.  As  cousins,  they  had  all 
their  lives  been  familiar  and  affectionate,  and 
Alice  Gray  had  frequently  lived  months  at  a 
time  at  the  Broom,  taking  care  of  the  children, 
and  in  all  respects  one  of  the  family.  Their 
conditions  were  now  almost  equally  desolate, 
and  a  deep  sympathy  made  them  now  more 
firmly  attached  than  they  ever  could  have  been 
in  better  days.  Siill,  nothing  ai  all  resembling 
love  was  in  either  of  their  hearts,  nor  did  the 
thought  of  marriage  ever  pass  across  their  ima- 
ginations. They  found,  however,  increasing 
satisfaction  in  each  other's  company ;  and 
looks  and  words  of  sad  and  sober  endearment 
gradually  bound  them  together  in  affection 
stronger  far  than  either  could  have  believed. 
Their  friends  saw  and  spoke  of  the  attach- 
iment,  and  of  its  probable  result,  long  before 
they  were  aware  of  its  full  nature;  and  no- 
body was  surprised,  but,  on  the  contrary,  all 
Were  well  pleased,  when  it  was  understood 
that  they  were  to  be  man  and  wife.  There  was 
something  almost  mournful  in  their  marriage 
— rio  rejoicing — no  merry-making — but  yet 
visible  symptoms  of  gratitude,  contentment, 
and  peace.  An  air  of  cheerfulness  was  not 
long  of  investing  the  melancholy  Broom— the 
very  swallows  twittered  more  gladly  from  the 
wmdow-corners,  and  there  was  joy  in  the  coo- 
ing of  the  pigeons  on  the  sunny  roof.  The 
farm  awoke  through  all  its  fields,  and  the  farm- 
servants  once  more  sang  and  whistled  at  their 
work.  The  wandering  begcjar,  who  remem- 
bered the  charity  of  other  years,  looked  with 
no  cold  expression  on  her  who  now  dealt  out 
his  dole;  and,  as  his  old  eyes  were  dimmed 
for  the  sake  of  those  who  were  gone,  gave  a 
fervent  blessing  on  the  new  mistress 'of  the 
house,  and  prayed  that  she  might  long  be 
spared     The  neighbours,  even  they   who  had 


best  loved  the  dead,  came  in  with  cheerful 
countenances, and  acknowledged  in  theirhearts 
that  since  change  is  the  law  of  life,  there  was 
no  one,  far  or  near,  whom  they  could  have 
borne  to  see  sitting  in  that  chair  but  Alice 
Gray.  The  husband  knew  their  feelings  from 
their  looks,  and  his  fireside  blazed  once  more 
with  a  cheerful  lustre. 

O  gentle  reader,  young  perhaps,  and  inex- 
perienced of  this  world,  wonder  not  at  this  so 
great  change  !  The  heart  is  full,  perhaps,  of  a 
pure  and  holy  aflfection,  nor  can  it  die,  even 
for  an  hour  of  sleep.  May  it  never  die  but  in 
the  grave !  Yet  die  it  may,  and  leave  thee 
blameless.  The  lime  may  come  when  that 
bosom,  now  thy  Elysium,  will  awaken  not, 
with  all  its  heaving  beauty,  one  single  pas- 
sionate or  adoring  sigh.  Those  eyes,  that  now 
stream  agitation  and  bliss  into  thy  throbbing 
heart,  may,  on  some  not  very  distant  day,  be 
cold  IV  thy  imagination,  as  the  distant  and  un- 
heeded stars.  That  voice,  now  thrilling  through 
every  nerve,  may  fall  on  thy  ear  a  disregarded 
sound.  Other  hopes,  other  fears,  other  troubles, 
may  possess  thee  wholly — and  that  more  than 
angel  of  Heaven  seem  to  fade  away  into  a 
shape  of  earth's  most  common  clay.  But  here 
there  was  no  change — no  forgeifulness — no 
oblivion — no  faithlessness  to  a  holy  trust. 
The  melancholy  man  often  saw  his  Hannah, 
and  all  his  seven  sweet  children — now  fair  in 
life — now  pale  in  death.  S<imetimes,  perhaps, 
the  sight,  the  sound — their  smiles  and  their 
voiccs^-disturbed  him,  till  his  heart  quaked 
within  him,  and  he  wished  that  he  too  was 
dead.  But  God  it  was  who  had  removed  them 
from  our  earth — and  was  it  possible  to  doubt 
that  they  were  all  in  blessedness!  Shed  your 
tears  over  change  from  virtue  to  vice,  happi- 
ness to  misery;  but  weep  not  for  those  still, 
sad,  mysterious  processes  by  which  gracious 
Nature  alleviates  the  aflliciions  of  our  mortal 
lot,  and  enables  us  to  endure  the  life  which  the 
Lord  our  God  hath  given  us.  Erelong,  husband 
and  wife  could  bear  to  speak  of  those  who 
were  now  no  more  seen ;  when  the  phantoms 
rose  before  (hem  in  the  silence  of  the  night, 
they  all  wore  pleasant  and  approving  counte- 
nances, and  the  beautiful  family  often  came 
from  Heaven  to  visit  their  father  in  his 
dreams.  He  did  not  wish,  much  less  hope,  in 
tlys  lile.  for  such  happiness  as  had  once  been 
his — nor  did  Alice  Gray,  even  for  one  hour, 
imagine  that  such  happiness  it  was  in  her 
power  to  bestow.  They  knew  each  other's 
hearts — what  they  had  suffered  and  survived; 
and,  since  the  meridian  of  life  and  joy  was 
cone,  they  were  contented  with  the  pensive 
twilight. 

Look,  there  is  a  pretty  Cottage — by  name 
LKAsinr.^me  that  might  almost  do  for  a 
painter — just  sulhciently  shaded  by  trees,  and 
showing  a  new  aspect  every  step  you  take,  and 
each  new  aspect  beautiful.  There  is,  it  is 
true,  neither  moss,  nor  lichens,  nor  weather- 
stains  on  the  roof — but  all  is  smooth,  neat,  trim, 
deep  thatch,  from  rigging  to  eaves,  with  a 
picturesque  elevated  window  covered  with  the 
same  material,  and  all  the  walls  while  as  snow. 
The  whole  building  is  at  all  times  as  fresh  as 
I  if  just  washed  by  a  vernal  shower.    Compe* 


COTTAGES. 


67 


tence  breathes  from  every  lattice,  and  that 
porch  has  been  reared  more  for  ornament  than 
defence,  although,  no  doubt,  it  is  useful  both  in 
March  and  November  winds.  Every  field 
about  it  is  like  a  garden,  and  yet  the  garden  is 
brightly  conspicuous  amidst  all  the  surround- 
ing cultivation.  The  hedgerows  are  all  clipped, 
for  they  have  grown  there  for  many  and  many 
a  year;  and  the  shears  were  necessary  to  keep 
them  down  from  shutting  out  the  vista  of  the 
lovely  vale.  That  is  the  dwelling  of  Adam 
Airlie  the  Elder.  Happy  old  man  !  This  life 
has  gone  uniformly  well  with  him  and  his ; 
yet,  had  it  been  otherwise,  there  is  a  power  in 
his  spirit  that  would  have  sustained  the  sever- 
est inflictions  of  Providence.  His  gratitude  to 
God  is  something  solemn  and  awful,  and  ever 
accompanied  with  a  profound  sense  of  his  utter 
unworthinessof  all  the  long-continued  mercies 
vouchsafed  to  his  family.  His  own  happiness, 
prolonged  to  a  great  age,  has  not  closed  within 
his  heart  one  source  of  pity  or  affection  for  his 
brethren  of  mankind.  In  his  own  guiltless 
conscience,  guiltless  before  man,  he  yet  feels 
incessantly  the  frailties  of  his  nature,  and  is 
meek,  humble,  and  penitent  as  the  greatest 
sinner.  He,  his  wife,  an  old  faithful  female 
servant,  and  an  occasional  grand-daughter, 
now  form  the  whole  household.  His  three  sons 
have  all  prospered  in  the  world.  The  eldest 
went  abroad  when  a  mere  boy,  and  many  f(Tars 
went  with  him — a  bold,  adventurous,  and  some- 
what reckless  creature.  But  consideration 
came  to  him  in  a  foreign  climate,  and  tamed 
down  his  ardent  mind  to  a  thoughtful,  not  a 
selfish  prudence.  Twenty  )'ears  he  lived  in 
India — and  what  a  blessed  day  was  the  day  of 
his  return  !  Yet  in  the  prime  of  life,  by  dis- 
ease unbroken,  and  with  a  heart  full  to  over- 
flowing with  all  its  old  sacred  affections,  he 
came  back  to  his  father's  lowly  cottage,  and 
wept  as  he  crossed  the  threshold.  His  parents 
needed  not  any  of  his  wealth  ;  but  they  were 
blamelessly  proud,  nevertheless,  of  his  honest 
acquisitions — proud  when  he  became  a  land- 
holder in  his  native  parish,  and  employed  the 
sons  of  his  old  companions,  and  some  of  his 
old  companions  themselves,  in  the  building  of 
his  unostentatious  mansion,  or  in  cultivating  the 
M'ikl  but  not  unlovely  moor,  which  was  dear  to 
him  for  the  sake  of  the  countless  remembrances 
that  clothed  the  bare  banks  of  its  lochs,  aftd 
murmured  in  the  little  stream  that  ran  among 
the  pastoral  braes.  The  new  mansion  is  a 
couple  of  miles  from  his  parental  Cottage;  but 
not  a  week,  indeed  seldom  half  that  time, 
elapses,  without  a  visit  to  that  dear  dwelling. 
They  likewise  not  unfrequentiy  visit  him — for 
his  wife  is  dear  to  them  as  a  daughter  of  their 
own  ;  and  the  ancient  couple  delight  in  the 
noise  and  laughter  of  his  pretty  flock.  Yet  the 
son  understands  perfectly  well  that  the  aged 
people  love  best  their  own  roof — and  that  its 
familiar  quiet  is  every  day  dearer  to  their 
habituated  aff"ections.  Therefore  he  makes  no 
parade  of  filial  tenderness — forces  nothing  new 
upon  them — is  glad  to  see  the  uninterrupted 
tenor  of  their  humble  happiness;  and  if  they 
are  proud  of  him,  which  all  the  parish  knows, 
so  is  there  not  a  child  within  its  bounds  that 
does  not  know  that  Mr.  Airlie,  the  rich  gentle- 


man from  India,  loves  his  poor  father  and 
mother  as  tenderly  as  if  he  had  never  left  their 
roof;  and  is  prouder  of  them,  too,  than  if  they 
were  clothed  in  fine  raiment,  and  fared  sump- 
tuously every  day.  Mr.  Airlie  of  the  Mount 
has  his  own  seat  in  the  gallery  of  the  Kirk — 
his  father,  as  an  Elder,  sits  below  the  pulpit — 
but  occasionally  the  pious  and  proud  son  joins 
his  mother  in  the  pew,  where  he  and  his  bro- 
thers sat  long  ago ;  and  every  Sabbath  one  or 
other  of  his  children  takes  its  place  beside  the 
venerated  matron.  The  old  man  generally 
leaves  the  churchyard  leaning  on  his  Gilbert's 
arm — and  although  the  sight  has  long  been  so 
common  as  to  draw  no  attention,  yet  no  doubt 
there  is  always  an  under  and  unconscious 
pleasure  in  many  a  mind  witnessing  the 
sacredness  of  the  bond  of  blood.  Now  and 
then  the  old  matron  is  prevailed  upon,  when 
the  weather  is  bad  and  roads  miry,  to  take  a 
seat  home  in  the  carriage — but  the  Elder 
always  prefers  walking  thither  Avith  his  son, 
and  he  is  stout  and  hale,  although  upwards  of 
threescore  and  ten  years. 

Walter,  the  second  son,  is  now  a  captain  in 
the  navy,  having  served  for  years  before  the 
mast.  His  mind  is  in  his  profession,  and  he 
is  perpetually  complaining  of  being  unem- 
ployed— a  ship — a  ship,  is  still  the  burden  of 
his  song.  But  when  at  home — which  he  often 
is  for  weeks  together — he  attaches  himself  to 
all  the  ongoings  of  rural  life,  as  devotedly  as 
if  a  plougher  of  the  soil  instead  of  the  sea. 
His  mother  wonders,  with  tears  in  her  eyes, 
why,  having  a  competency,  he  should  still  wish 
to  provoke  the  dangers  of  the  deep ;  and  be- 
seeches him  sometimes  to  become  a  farmer  in 
his  native  vale.  And  perhaps  more  improba- 
ble things  have  happened;  for  the  captain,  it 
is  said,  has  fallen  desperately  in  love  with  the 
daughter  of  the  clergyman  of  a  neighbouring 
parish,  and  the  doctor  will  not  give  his  consent 
to  the  marriage,  unless  he  promise  to  live,  if 
allowed,  on  shore.  The  political  state  of 
Europe  certainly  seems  at  present  favourable 
to  the  consummation  of  the  wishes  of  all 
parties. 

Of  David,  the  third  son,  who  has  not  heard, 
that  has  heard  any  thing  of  the  pulpit  eloquence 
of  Scotland? — Should  his  life  be  spared,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  he  will  one  day  or  other 
be  Moderator  of  the  General  Assembly,  per- 
haps Professor  of  Divinity  in  a  College.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  a  better  Christian  never  ex- 
pounded the  truths  of  the  gospel,  although 
some  folks  pretend  to  say  that  he  is  not  evan- 
gelical. He  is,  however,  beloved  by  the  poor 
— the  orphan  and  the  widow;  and  his  minis- 
trations, powerful  in  the  kirk  to  a  devoutly 
listening  congregation,  are  so  too  at  the  sick- 
bed, when  only  two  or  three  are  gathered 
around  it,  and  when  the  dying  man  feels  how 
a  fellow-creature  can,  by  scriptural  aids, 
strengthen  his  trust  in  the  mercy  of  his  Maker. 

Every  year,  on  each  birthday  of  their  sons, 
the  old  people  hold  a  festival — in  May,  in 
August,  and  at  Christmas.  The  sailor  alone 
looks  disconsolate  as  a  bachelor,  but  that 
reproach  will  be  wiped  away  before  autumn  • 
and  should  God  grant  the  cottagers  a  few  more 
years,  some  new  faces  will  yet  smile  upon  th« 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


holydays;  and  there  is  in  their  unwithered 
hearts  warm  love  enough  for  all  that  may  join 
the  party.  We  too— yes,  gentle  reader— we 
too  shall  be  there — as  we  have  often  been 
during  the  last  ten  years — and  you  yourself 
■will  judge,  from  all  you  knovv^  of  us,  whether 
or  no  we  have  a  heart  to  understand  and  enjoy 
such  rare  felicity. 

But  let  us  be  off  to  the  mountains,  and  en- 
deavour to  interest  our  beloved  reader  in  a 
Highland  Cottage — in  any  one,  taken  at  hap- 
hazard, from  a  hundred.  You  have  been 
roaming  all  day  among  the  mountains,  and 
perhaps  seen  no  house  except  at  a  dwindling 
distance.  Probably  you  have  wished  not  to 
see  any  house,  but  a  ruined  shieling — a  deserted 
hut — or  an  unroofed  and  dilapidated  shed  for 
the  outlying  cattle  of  some  remote  farm.  But 
now  the  sun  has  inflamed  all  the  western 
heaven,  and  darkness  will  soon  descend. 
There  is  now  a  muteness  more  stern  and 
solemn  than  during  unfaded  daylight.  List — 
the  faint,  far-off,  subterranean  sound  of  the 
bagpipe  !  Some  old  soldier,  probably,  playing 
a  gathering  or  a  coronach.  The  narrow  dell 
widens  and  widens  into  a  great  glen,  in  which 
you  just  discern  the  blue  gleam  of  a  loch. 
The  martial  music  is  more  distinctly  heard — 
loud,  fitful,  fierce,  like  the  trampling  of  men  in 
battle.  Where  is  the  piper?  In  a  cave,  or 
within  the  Fairies'  Knowe  1  At  the  door  of  a 
hut.  His  eyes  were  extinguished  by  oph- 
thalmia, and  there  he  sits,  fronting  the  sun- 
light, stone-blind.  Long  silver  hair  ilows  down 
his  broad  shoulders,  and  you  peiceive  that, 
Avhen  he  rises,  he  will  rear  up  a  stately  bulk. 
The  music  stops,  and  you  hear  the  bleating  of 
goats.  There  they  come,  prancing  down  the 
rocks,  and  stare  upon  the  stranger.  The  idd 
soldier  turns  himself  towards  the  voice  of  the 
Sassenach,  and,  with  the  bold  courtesy  of  the 
camp,  bids  him  enter  the  hut.  One  minute's 
view  has  sufficed  to  imprint  the  scene  for  ever 
on  the  memory — a  hut  whose  turf-walls  and 
roof  are  incorporated  with  the  living  mountain, 
and  seem  not  the  work  of  man's  hand,  but  the 
casual  architecture  of  some  convulsion — the 
tumbling  down  of  fragments  from  the  mountain 
side  by  raging  torrents,  or  a  partial  earthquake; 
for  all  the  scenery  about  is  torn  to  pieces — 
like  the  scattering  of  some  wide  ruin.  The 
imagination  dreams  of  the  earliest  days  of  our 
race,  when  men  harboured,  like  the  other 
creatures,  in  places  provided  by  nature.  But 
even  here,  there  are  visible  traces  of  cultivation 
working  in  the  spirit  of  a  mountainous  region 
— a  few  glades  of  the  purest  verdure  opened 
out  among  the  tall  brackens,  with  a  birch-tree 
or  two  dropped  just  where  the  eye  of  taste 
could  have  wished,  had  the  painter  planted  the 
sapling,  instead  of  the  winds  of  heaven  having 
wafted  thither  the  seed — a  small  croft  of 
barley,  surrounded  by  a  cairn-.ikc  wall,  made 
up  of  stones  cleared  from  the  soil,  and  a  patch 
of  potatoe  ground,  neat  almost  as  the  garden 
that  shows  in  a  nook  its  fruit-bushes  and  a 
few  flowers.  All  the  blasts  that  ever  blew 
must  be  unavailing  against  the  briery  rock  that 
shehers  the  hut  from  the  airt  of  storms  ;  and 
the  smoke  may  rise  under  its  lee,  unwavering 
on  ihe  windiest  day.    There  is  sweetness  in 


all  the  air,  and  the  glen  is  noiseless,  except 
with  the  uncertain  murmur  of  the  now  un- 
swollen  waterfalls.  That  is  the  croak  of  the 
raven  sitting  on  his  clitf  halfway  up  Ben-Oura; 
and  hark,  the  last  belling  of  the  red-deer,  as 
the  herd  lies  down  in  the  mist  among  the  last 
ridge  of  heather,  blending  with  the  shrubless 
stones,  rocks,  and  cliffs  that  girdle  the  upper 
regions  of  the  vast  mountain. 

Within  the  dimness  of  that  hut  }'ou  hear 
greetings  in  the  Gaelic  tongue,  in  a  female 
voice ;  and  when  the  eye  has  by  and  by  become 
able  to  endure  the  smoke,  it  discerns  the 
household — the  veteran's  ancient  dame — a 
young  man  that  may  be  his  son,  or  rather  his 
grandson,  but  whom  5-ou  soon  know  to  be 
neither,  with  black  matted  locks,  the  keen  eye, 
and  the  light  limbs  of  Ihe  hunter — a  young 
woman,  his  wife,  suckling  a  child,  and  yet 
with  a  girlish  look,  as  if  but  one  year  before 
her  silken'snood  had  been  untied — and  a  lassie 
often  years,  who  had  brought  home  the  goats, 
and  now  sits  timidly  in  a  nook  eyeing  the 
stranger.  The  low  growl  of  the  huge,  brindled 
stag-hound  had  been  hushed  by  a  word  on  your 
first  entrance,  and  the  noble  animal  watches 
his  master's  eye,  which  he  obeys  in  his  free- 
dom throughout  all  the  forest-chase.  A  napkin 
is  taken  out  of  an  old  worm-eaten  chest,  and 
spreail  over  a  strangely-carved  table,  that 
seems  to  liave  belonged  once  to  a  place  of 
pride;  and  the  hungry  and  thirsty  stranger 
scarcelv  knows  which  most  to  admire,  the 
broad  bannocks  of  barley-meal  and  the  huge 
roll  of  butter,  or  the  giant  bottle,  whose  mouth 
exhales  the  strong  savour  of  conquering  Glen- 
livet.  The  board  is  spread — why  not  fall  to 
and  eat  1  First  be  thanks  given  to  the  Lord 
God  Almighty.  The  blind  man  holds  up  his 
hand  and  prays  in  a  low  chanting  voice,  and 
then  breaks  bread  for  the  lips  of  the  stranger. 
On  such  an  occasion  is  felt  the  sanctity  of  the 
meal  shared  by  human  beings  brought  acci- 
dentally together — the  salt  is  sacred — and  the 
hearth  an  altar. 

No  great  travellers  are  we,  yet  have  we  seen 
something  of  this  habitable  globe.  The  High- 
lands of  Scotland  is  but  a  small  region,  nor  is 
its  interior  by  any  means  so  remote  as  the  in- 
terior of  Africa.  Yet  'tis  remote.  The  life  of 
that  very  blind  veteran  might,  in  belter  hands 
thjfn  ours,  make  an  interesting  history.  In  his 
youth  he  had  been  a  shepherd — a  herdsman — 
a  hunter — something  even  of  a  poet.  For 
thirty  years  he  had  been  a#soldicr — in  many 
climates  and  many  conflicts.  Since  first  he 
bloodied  his  bayonet,  how  many  of  his  com- 
rades had  been  buried  in  heaps!  flnng  into 
trenches  dug  on  the  field  of  battle !  How 
many  famous  captains  had  shone  in  the  blaze 
of  their  fame — laded  into  the  light  of  common 
day — died  in  obscurity,  and  been  utterly  for- 
gotten !  What  fierce  passions  must  have  agi- 
tated the  frame  of  that  now  calm  old  man ! 
On  Avhat  dreadful  scenes,  when  forts  and  towns 
were  taken  by  storm,  must  those  eyes,  now 
withered  into  nothing,  have  glared  with  all  the 
fury  of  man's  most  wrathful  soul !  Now  peace 
is  with  him  for  evermore.  Nothing  to  speak 
of  the  din  of  battle,  but  his  own  pipes  wailing 
or  raging  among  the  hollow  of  the  mountains. 


COTTAGES. 


69 


In  relation  to  his  campaigning  career,  his  pre- 
sent life  is  as  the  life  of  another  state.  The 
pageantry  of  war  has  all  rolled  off  and  away 
for  ever;  all  its  actions  but  phantoms  now  of 
a  dimly-remembered  dream.  He  thinks  of  his 
former  self,  as  sergeant  in  the  Black  Watch, 
and  almost  imagines  he  beholds  another  man. 
In  his  long,  long  blindness,  he  has  created  an- 
other world  to  himself  out  of  new  voices — the 
voices  of  new  generations,  and  of  torrents  thun- 
dering all  year  long  round  about  his  hut.  Almost 
all  the  savage  has  been  tamed  within  him,  and 
an  awful  religion  falls  deeper  and  deeper  upon 
him,  as  he  knows  how  he  is  nearing  the  grave. 
Often  his  whole  mind  is  dim,  for  he  is  exceed- 
ingly old,  and  then  he  sees  only  fragments  of 
his  youthful  life — the  last  forty  years  are  as  if 
they  had  never  been — and  he  hears  shouts  and 
huzzas,  that  half  a  century  ago  rent  the  air 
wilh  victory.  He  can  still  chant,  in  a  hoarse 
broken  voice,  battle-hymns  and  dirges;  and 
thus,  strangely  forgetful  and  strangely  tena- 
cious of  the  past,  linked  to  this  life  by  ties  that 
only  the  mountaineer  can  know,  and  yet  feel- 
ing himself  on  the  brink  of  the  next.  Old  Blind 
Donald  Roy,  the  Giant  of  the  Hut  of  the  Three 
Torrents,  will  not  scruple  to  quaff  the  "strong 
waters,"  till  his  mind  is  awakened — brighten- 
ed— dimmed — darkened — and  seemingly  ex- 
tinguished— till  the  sunrise  again  smites  him, 
as  he  lies  in  a  heap  among  the  heather;  and 
then  he  lifts  up,  unashamed  and  remorseless, 
that  head,  which,  with  its  long  quiet  hairs,  a 
painter  might  choose  for  the  image  of  a  saint 
about  to  become  a  martyr. 

We  leave  old  Donald  asleep,  and  go  with 
his  son-in-law,  Lewis  of  the  light-foot,  and 
Maida  the  stag-hound,  surnamed  the  Throttler, 

"Where  the  hunter  of  deer  ami  the  warrior  trod, 
To  his  hills  that  encircle  the  sea." 

We  have  been  ascending  mountain-range 
afler  mountain-range,  before  sunrise;  and  lo! 
night  is  gone,  and  nature  rejoices  in  the  day 
through  all  her  solitudes.  Still  as  death,  yet  as 
life  cheerful — and  unspeakable  grandeur  in  the 
sudden  revelation.  Where  is  the  wild-deer 
herd  1 — where,  ask  the  keen  eyes  of  Maida,  is 
the  forest  of  antlers  ! — Lewis  of  the  lisht-foot 
bounds  before,  with  his  long  gun  pointing  to- 
wards the  mists  now  gathered  up  to  the  sum- 
mits of  Benevis. 

Nightfall — and  we  are  once  more  at  the  Hut 
of  the  Three  Torrents.  Small  Amy  is  grown 
familiar  now,  and,  almost  without  being  asked, 
sings  us  the  choicest  of  her  Gaelic  airs — a  few 
too  of  Lowland  melody  :  all  merry,  yet  all  sad 
— if  in  smiles  begun,  ending  in  a  shower — or 
at  least  a  tender  mist  of  tears.  Heard'st  thou 
ever  such  a  syren  as  this  Celtic  child?  Did 
we  not  always  tell  you  that  fairies  were  indeed 
realities  of  the  twilight  or  moonlight  world? 
And  she  is  their  Queen.  Hark !  what  thunders 
of  applause  !  The  waterfall  at  the  head  of  the 
great  Corrie  thunders  encore  with  a  hundred 
echoes.  But  the  songs  are  over,  and  the  small 
singtr  gone  to  hf  r  heather-bed.  There  is  a 
Highland  moon  !-  The  shield  of  an  unfallen 
arch-angel.  There  are  not  many  stars — but 
those  two — ay,  that  v)ne,  is  sufficient  to  sustain 
the  glory  of  the  night.     Be  not  alarmed  at  that 


low,  wide,  solemn,  and  melancholy  sound. 
Runlets,  torrents,  rivers,  lochs,  and  seas — 
reeds,  heather,  forests,  caves,  and  cliffs,  all  are 
sound,  sounding  together  a  choral  anthem. 

Gracious  heavens  !  what  mistakes  people 
have  fallen  into  when  writing  about  Solitude  ! 
A  man  leaves  a  town  for  a  few  months,  and 
goes  with  his  wife  and  family,  and  a  travelling 
librar}-,  into  some  solitary  glen.  Friends  are 
perpetually  visiting  him  from  afar,  or  the 
neighbouring  gentr)-  leaving  their  cards,  while 
his  servant-boy  rides  daily  to  the  post-village 
for  his  letters  and  newspapers.  And  call  you 
that  solitude  1  The  whole  world  is  with  you, 
morning,  noon,  and  night.  But  go  by  your- 
self, without  book  or  friend,  and  live  a  month 
in  this  hut  at  the  head  of  Glenevis.  Go  at 
dawn  among  the  cliffs  of  yonder  pine-forest, 
and  wait  there  till  night  hangs  her  moon-lamp 
in  heaven.  Commune  with  your  own  soul, 
and  be  still.  Let  the  images  of  departed  years 
rise,  phantom-like,  of  their  own  awful  accord 
from  the  darkness  of  your  memory,  and  pass 
away  into  the  wood-gloom  or  the  mountain- 
mist.  Will  conscience  dread  such  spectres! 
Will  you  quake  before  them,  and  bow  down 
your  head  on  the  mossy  root  of  some  old  oak, 
and  sob  in  the  stern  silence  of  the  haunted 
place  1  Thoughts,  feelings,  passions,  spectral 
deeds,  will  come  rushing  around  your  lair,  as 
with  the  sound  of  the  wings  of  innumerous 
birds — ay,  many  of  them  like  birds  of  prey,  to 
gnaw  your  ver>'  heart.  How  many  duties  un- 
discharged •  How  many  opportunities  neglect- 
ed'! How  many  pleasures  devoured  !  How 
many  sins  hugged  !  How  many  wickednesses 
perpetrated!  The  desert  looks  more  grim — 
the  heaven  lowers — and  the  sun,  like  God's 
own  eye,  stares  in  upon  your  conscience  ! 

But  such  is  not  the  solitude  of  our  beaulfiul 
young  shepherd-girl  of  the  Hut  of  the  Three 
Torrents.  Her  soul  is  as  clear,  as  calm  as  the 
pool  pictured  at  times  by  the  floating  clouds 
that  let  fall  their  shadows  through  among  the 
overhanging  birch-trees.  What  harm  could 
she  ever  do  1  What  harm  could  she  ever  think. 
She  may  have  wept — for  there  is  sorrow  with- 
out sin  ;  may  have  wept  even  at  her  prayers— 
for  there  is  penitence  free  from  guilt,  and  in- 
nocence itself  often  kneels  in  contrition.  Down 
the  long  glen  she  accompanies  the  stream  to 
the  house  of  God — sings  her  psalms — and  re- 
turns wearied  to  her  heather-bed.  She  is,  in- 
deed, a  solitary  child ;  the  eagle,  and  the  raven, 
and  the  red-deer  see  that  she  is  so — and  echo 
knows  it  when  from  her  airy  cliff  she  repeats 
the  happy  creature's  song.  Her  world  is  within 
this  one  glen.  .In  this  one  glen  she  may  live 
all  her  days — be  wooed,  won,  wedded,  buried. 
Buried— said  M^e  ?  Oh,  why  think  of  burial 
when  gazing  on  that  resplendent  head  ?  Inter- 
minaWe  tracts  of  the  shining  day  await  her, 
the  lonely  darling  of  nature ;  nor  dare  Time 
ever  eclipse  the  lustre  of  those  wild-beaming 
e^-es  !  Her  beauty  shall  be  immortal,  like  that 
of  her  country's  fairies.  So,  Flower  of  the 
Wilderness,  we  wave  towards  thee  a  joyfu'— 
though  an  everlasting  farewell. 

Where  are  we  now?  There  is  not  on  this 
round  green  earth  a  lovelier  Loch  than  Achray. 
About  a  mile  above  Loch  Vennachar  and  as 


70 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


we  approach  the  Brigg  of  Turk,  we  arrive  at 
the  summit  of  an  eminence,  whence  we  descry 
the  sudden  and  wide  prospect  of  the  windings 
of  the  river  that  issues  from  Loch  Achray — 
and  the  Loch  itself  reposing — sleeping — dream- 
ing on  its  pastoral,  its  silvan  bed.  Achray, 
being  interpreted,  signifies  the  "Level  Field," 
and  gives  its  name  to  a  delightful  farm  at  the 
west  end.  On  "  that  happy,  rural  seat  of  va- 
rious view,"  could  we  lie  all  day  long;  and  as 
all  the  beauty  tends  towards  the  west,  each 
afternoon  hour  deepens  and  also  brightens  it 
into  mellower  splendour.  Not  to  keep  con- 
stantly seeing  the  lovely  Loch  is  indeed  im- 
possible— yet  its  still  waters  soothe  the  soul, 
without  holding  it  away  from  the  woods  and 
cliffs,  that  forming  of  themselves  a  perfect  pic- 
ture, are  yet  all  united  with  the  mountainous 
region  of  the  setting  sun.  Many  long  years 
have  elapsed — at  our  lime  of  life  ten  are  many 
— since  we  passed  one  delightful  evening  in 
the  hospitable  house  that  stands  near  the 
wooden  bridge  over  the  Teiih,  just  wheeling 
into  Loch  Achray.  What  a  wilderness  of 
wooded  rocks,  containing  a  thousand  little 
mossy  glens,  each  large  enough  for  a  fairy's 
kingdom!  Between  and  Loch  Katrine  is  the 
Place  of  Roes — nor  need  the  angler  try  to  pe- 
netrate the  underwood;  for  every  shallow, 
every  linn,  every  pool  is  overshaded  by  its 
own  canopy,  and  the  living  fly  and  moth  alone 
ever  dip  their  wings  in  the  chequered  waters. 
Safe  there  are  all  the  little  singing  birds,  from 
hawk  or  glead — and  it  is  indeed  an  Aviary  in  the 
wild.  Pine-groves  stand  here  and  there  amid 
the  natural  woods — and  among  their  tall  gloom 
the  cushat  sits  crooning  in  beloved  solitude, 
rarely  startled  by  human  footstep,  and  bearing 
at  his  own  pleasure  through  the  forest  the  sound 
of  his  flapping  wings. 

But  let  us  arise  from  the  greensward,  and  be- 
fore we  pace  along  the  sweet  shores  of  Loch 
Achray,  for  its  nearest  murmur  is  yet  more 
than  a  mile  off,  turn  away  up  from  the  Brigg 
of  Turk  into  Glenfinglas.  A  strong  mounlain- 
torrcnt,  in  which  a  painter,  even  with  the  soul 
of  Salvator  Rosa,  might  find  studies  inexhaust- 
ible for  years,  tumbles  on  the  left  of  a  ravine, 
in  which  a  small  band  of  warriors  might  stop 
the  march  of  a  numerous  host.  With  what  a 
loud  voice  it  brawls  through  the  silence,  fresh- 
ening the  hazels,  the  birches,  and  the  oaks, 
that  in  that  perpetual  spray  need  not  the  dew's 
refreshment.  But  the  savage  scene  softens  as 
you  advance,  and  you  come  out  of  that  silvan 
prison  into  a  plain  of  meadows  and  corn-fields, 
alive  with  the  peaceful  dwellings  of  indus- 
trious men.  Here  the  bases  of  the  mountains, 
and  even  their  sides  high  up,  are  without 
neather— a  rich  sward,  with  here  and  there  a 
deep  bed  of  brackens,  and  a  little  sheep-shel- 
tenng  grove.  Skeletons  of  old  trees  of  prodi- 
gious size  lie  covered  with  mosses  and  wild- 
flowers,  or  stand  with  their  barkless  trunks  and 
white  hmbs  unmoved  when  the  tempest  blows. 
Glenfinglas  was  anciently  a  deer-forest  of  the 
Kings  of  Scotland;  but  hunter's  horn  no  more 
awakens  the  echoes  of  Benledi. 

A  more  beautiful  vale  never  inspired  pas- 
toral pc't  in  Arcadia,  nor  did  Sicilian  shep- 
lirr ds  of  old  ever  pipe  to  each  other  for  prize 


of  oaten  reed,  in  a  lovelier  nook  than  where 
yonder  cottage  stands,  shaded,  but  scarcely 
sheltered,  by  a  few  birch-trees.  It  is  iu  truth 
not  a  cottage — but  a  very  Shielixg,  part  of 
the  knoll  adhering  to  the  side  of  the  mountain. 
Not  another  dwelling — even  as  small  as  itself— 
within  a  mile  in  any  direction.  Those  goats 
that  seem  to  walk  where  there  is  no  footing 
along  the  side  of  the  clifl',  go  of  themselves  to 
be  milked  at  evening  to  a  house  beyond  the 
hill,  without  any  barking  dog  to  set  them  home. 
There  are  many  footpaths,  but  all  of  sheep,  ex- 
cept pne  leading  through  the  coppice-wood  to 
the  distant  kirk.  The  angler  seldom  disturbs 
those  shallows,  and  the  heron  has  them  to  him- 
self, watching  often  with  motionless  neck  all 
day  long.  Yet  the  Shieling  is  inhabited,  and 
has  been  so  by  the  same  person  for  a  good  many 
years.  You  might  look  at  it  for  hours,  and  yet 
see  no  one  so  much  as  moving  to  the  door.  But 
a  little  smoke  hovers  over  it — verj-  faint  if  it 
be  smoke  at  all — and  nothing  else  tells  that 
within  is  life. 

It  is  inhabited  by  a  widow,  who  once  was 
the  happiest  of  wives,  and  lived  far  down  the 
glen,  where  it  is  richly  cultivated,  in  a  house 
astir  with  many  children.  It  so  happened,  that 
in  the  course  of  nature,  without  any  extraordi- 
nary bereavements,  she  outlived  all  the  house- 
hold, except  one,  on  whom  fell  the  saddest 
aflliction  lliat  can  befall  a  human  being — the 
utter  loss  of  reason.  For  some  years  after  the 
death  of  her  husband,  and  all  lier  other  children, 
this  son  was  her  support;  and  there  was  no 
occasion  to  pity  them  in  their  poverty,  where 
all  were  poor.  Her  natural  cheerfalncss  never 
forsook  her;  and  althoneh  fallen  back  in  the 
world,  and  obliged  in  her  age  to  live  without 
many  comforts  she  once  had  known,  yet  all  the 
past  gradually  was  softened  into  peace,  and  the 
widow  and  her  son  were  in  that  shieling  as 
happy  as  any  family  in  the  parish.  He  worked 
at  all  kinds  of  work  without,  and  she  sat  spin- 
ning from  morning  to  night  within — a  constant 
occupation,  soothing  to  one  before  wliose  mind 
past  times  might  otherwise  have  come  too  often, 
and  that  creates  contentment  by  its  undisturbed 
sameness  and  invisible  progression.  If  not 
always  at  meals,  the  widow  saw  her  son  for  an 
hour  or  two  every  nisrht,  and  throughout  the 
whole  Sabbath-day.  They  slept,  too,  under  one 
roof;  and  she  liked  the  stormy  weather  when 
the  rains  were  on — for  then  he  found  some  in- 
genious employment  within  the  shieling,  or 
cheered  her  with  some  book  lent  by  a  friend, 
or  with  the  lively  or  plaintive  mnsic  of  his 
native  hills.  Sometimes,  in  her  gratitude,  she 
said  that  she  was  happier  now  than  when  she 
had  so  many  other  causes  to  be  so;  and  when 
occasionally  an  acquaintance  dropt  in  upon 
her,  her  face  gave  a  welcome  that  spoke  more 
than  resignation;  nor  was  she  averse  to  par- 
take the  socially  of  the  other  huts,  and  sat 
sedate  among  youthful  merriment,  when  sum- 
mer or  winter  festival  came  round,  and  poverty 
rejoiced  in  the  riches  of  content  and  innocence. 

But  her  trials,  creat  as  they  had  been,  were 
not  yet  over;  for  this  her  only  son  was  laid 
prostrate  by  fever — and,  when  it  left  his  body, 
he  survived  hopelessly  stricken  in  mind.  His 
eyes,  so  clear  and  intelligent,  were  now  fixed 


COTTAGES. 


71 


in  idiocy,  or  rolled  about  unobserving  of  all 
objects  living  or  dead.  To  him  all  weather 
seemed  the  same,  and  if  suffered,  he  would 
have  lain  down  like  a  creature  void  of  under- 
standing, in  rain  or  on  snow,  nor  been  able  to 
find  his  way  back  for  many  paces  from  the  hut. 
As  all  thought  and  feeling  had  left  him,  so  had 
speech,  all  but  a  moaning  as  of  pain  or  wo, 
which  none  but  a  mother  could  bear  to  hear 
without  shuddering — but  she  heard  it  during 
night  as  well  as  day,  and  only  sometimes  lifted 
up  her  eyes  as  in  prayer  to  God.  An  offer  was 
made  to  send  him  to  a  place  where  the  afflicted 
were  taken  care  of;  but  she  beseeched  charity 
for  the  first  time  for  such  alms  as  would  enable 
her,  along  with  the  earnings  of  her  wheel,  to 
keep  her  son  in  the  shieling;  and  the  means 
were  given  her  from  many  quarters  to  do  so 
decently,  and  with  all  the  comforts  that  other 
eyes  observed,  but  of  which  the  poor  object  him- 
self was  insensible  and  unconscious.  Hence- 
forth, it  may  almost  be  said,  she  never  more 
saw  the  sun,  nor  heard  the  torrents  roar.  She 
wer.t  not  to  the  kirk,  but  kept  her  Sabbath 
where  the  paralytic  lay — and  there  she  sung 
the  lonely  psalm,  and  said  the  lonely  prayer, 
unheard  in  Heaven  as  many  repining  spirits 
would  have  thought — but  it  was  not  so;  for  in 
two  years  there  came  a  meaning  to  his  eyes, 
and  he  found  a  few  words  of  imperfect  speech, 
among  which  was  that  of  "  Mother."  Oh!  how 
her  heart  burned  within  her,  to  know  that  her 
face  was  at  last  recognised!  To  feel  that  her 
kiss  was  returned,  and  to  see  the  first  tear  that 
trickled  from  eyes  that  long  had  ceased  to 
weep !  Day  after  day,  the  darkness  that  co- 
vered his  brain  grew  less  and  less  deep — to 
her  that  bewilderment  gave  the  blessedness  of 
hope;  for  her  son  now  knew  that  he  had  an 
immortal  soul,  and  in  the  evening  joined  faintly 
and  feebly  and  crringly  in  prayer.  For  weeks 
afterwards  he  remembered  only  events  and 
scenes  long  past  and  distant — and  believed 
that  his  father,  and  all  his  brothers  and  sisters, 
were  yet  alive.  He  called  upon  them  by  their 
names  to  come  and  kiss  him — on  them,  who 
bad  all  long  been  buried  in  the  dust.  But  his 
soul  struggled  itself  into  reason  and  remem- 
brance— and  he  at  last  said,  "  Mother !  did  some 
accident  befall  me  yesterday  at  my  work  down 
the  glen  1 — I  feel  weak,  and  about  to  die  !"  The 
shadows  of  death  were  indeed  around  him;  but 
he  lived  to  be  told  much  of  what  had  hap- 
pened— and  rendered  up  a  perfectly  unclouded 
spirit  into  the  mercy  of  his  Saviour.  His 
mother  felt  that  all  her  prayers  had  been 
granted  in  that  one  boon — and,  when  the  coffin 
was  borne  away  from  the  shieling,  she  re- 
mained in  it  with  a  friend,  assured  that  in  this 
world  there  could  for  her  be  no  more  grief. 
And  there  in  that  same  shieling,  now  that  years 
have  gone  by,  she  still  lingers,  visited  as  often 
as  she  wishes  by  her  poor  neighbours — for  to 
the  poor  sorrow  is  a  sacred  thing — who,  by 
turns,  send  one  of  their  daughters  to  stay  with 
her,  and  cheer  a  life  that  cannot  be  long,  but 
that,  end  when  it  may,  will  be  laid  down  with- 
out one  impious  misgiving,  and  in  the  humility 
of  a  Christian's  faith. 

The  scene  shifts  of  itself,  and  we  are  at  the 
head  of  Glenetive.     Who  among  all  the  High- 


land maidens  that  danced  on  the  greenswards 
among  the  blooming  heather  on  the  mountains 
of  Glenetive — who  so  fair  as  Flora,  the  only 
daughter  of  the  King's  Forester,  and  grand- 
child to  the  Bard  famous  for  his  songs  of  Fai- 
ries in  the  Hill  of  Peace,  and  the  Mermaid- 
Queen  in  her  Palace  of  Emerald  floating  far 
down  beneath  the  foam-waves  of  the  seal 
And  who,  among  all  the  Highland  youth  that 
went  abroad  to  the  bloody  wars  from  the  base 
of  Benevis,  to  compare  with  Ranald  of  the  Red- 
Clifl^,  whose  sires  had  been  soldiers  for  centu- 
ries, in  the  days  of  the  dagger  and  Lochaber 
axe — stately  in  his  strength  amid  the  battle  as 
the  oak  in  a  storm,  but  gentle  in  peace  as  the 
birch-tree,  that  whispers  with  all  its  leaves  to 
the  slightest  summer-breath  ]  If  their  love  was 
great  when  often  fed  at  the  light  of  each  other's 
eyes,  what  was  it  when  Ranald  was  far  oflT 
among  the  sands  of  Egypt,  and  Flora  left  an 
orphan  to  pine  away  in  her  native  glen  1  Be- 
neath the  shadow  of  the  Pyramids  he  dreamt 
of  Dalness  and  the  deer  forest,  that  was  the 
dwelling  of  his  love — and  she,  as  she  stood  by 
the  murmurs  of  that  sea-loch,  longed  for  the 
wings  of  the  osprey,  that  she  might  flee  away 
to  the  war-teats  beyond  the  ocean,  and  be  at 
rest! 

But  years — a  few  years — long  and  lingering 
as  they  might  seem  to  loving  hearts  separated 
by  the  roar  of  seas — y-et  all  too,  too  short  when 
'tis  thought  how  small  a  number  lead  from  the 
cradle  to  the  grave — brought  Ranald  and  Flora 
once  more  into  each  other's  arms.  Alas  !  for 
the  poor  soldier!  for  never  more  was  he  to 
behold  that  face  from  which  he  kissed  the 
trickling  tears.  Like  many  another  gallant 
)'outh,  he  had  lost  his  eyesight  from  the  sharp 
burning  sand — and  was  led  to  the  shieling  of 
his  love  like  a  wandering  mendicant  who 
obeys  the  hand  of  a  child.  Nor  did  his  face 
bear  that  smile  of  resignation  usually  so  affect- 
ing on  the  calm  countenances  of  the  blind. 
Seldom  did  he  speak — and  his  sighs  wore 
deeper,  longer,  and  more  disturbed  than  those 
which  almost  any  sorrow^  ever  wrings  from 
the  young.  Could  it  be  that  he  groaned  in 
remorse  over  some  secret  crime  1 

Happ} — completely  happy,  would  Flora  have 
been  to  have  tended  him  like  a  sister  all  his 
dark  life  long,  or,  like  a  daughter,  to  have  sat 
beside  the  bed  of  one  whose  hair  was  getting 
fast  gray,  long  before  its  time.  Almost  all  her 
relations  were  dead,  and  almost  all  her  friends 
away  to  other  glens.  But  he  had  returned, 
and  blindness,  for  which  there  was  no  hope, 
must  bind  his  steps  for  ever  within  little  room. 
But  they  had  been  betrothed  almost  from  her 
childhood,  and  would  she — if  he  desired  it — 
fear  to  become  his  wife  now,  shrouded  as  he 
was,  now  and  for  ever  in  the  helpless  dark? 
From  his  lips,  however,  her  maidenly  modesty 
required  that  the  words  should  come,  nor 
could  she  sometimes  help  wondering,  in  half- 
upbraiding  sorrow,  that  Ranald  joyed  not  in 
his  great  affliction  to  claim  her  for  his  wife. 
Poor  were  they  to  be  sure — yet  not  so  poor  as 
to  leave  life  without  its  comforts;  and  in  every 
glen  of  her  native  Highlands,  were  there  nc 
worthy  families  far  poorer  than  they?  Bur 
weeks,   months,   passed   on,   and  Ranald    rf 


72 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  IS-OKTH. 


mained  in  a  neighbouring  hut,  shunning  the 
sunshine,  and  moaning,  it  ^vas  said,  when  he 
thought  none  were  near,  both  night  and  day. 
Sometimes  he  had  been  overheard  muttering 
to  himself  lamentable  words — and,  blind  as  his 
eyes  were  to  all  the  objects  of  the  real  world, 
it  was  rumoured  up  and  down  the  glen,  that 
he  saw  visions  of  woful  events  about  to  befall 
one  whom  he  loved. 

One  midnight  he  found  his  way,  unguided, 
like  a  man  walking  in  his  sleep — but  although 
in  a  hideous  trance,  he  was  yet  broad  awake — 
to  the  hut  where  Flora  dwelt,  and  called  on 
her,  in  a  dirge-like  voice,  to  speak  a  few  words 
with  him  ere  he  died,  'i'hey  sat  down  together 
among  the  heather,  on  the  very  spot  where  the 
farewell  embrace  had  been  given  the  morning 
he  went  awa)'  to  the  wars ;  and  Flora's  heart 
died  within  her,  when  he  told  her  that  the 
Curse  under  which  his  forefathers  had  sulfer- 
ed, had  fallen  upon  him;  and  that  he  had  seen 
his  wraith  pass  by  in  a  shroud,  and  heard  a 
voice  whisper  the  very  day  he  was  to  die. 

And  was  it  Ranald  of  the  Red-Clifl",  the 
bravest  of  the  brave,  that  thus  shuddered  in 
.he  fear  of  death  like  a  felon  at  the  tolling  .of 
,he  great  prison-belll  Ay,  death  is  dreadful 
when  foreseen  by  a  ghastly  superstition.  He 
felt  the  shroud  already  bound  round  his  limbs 
and  body  with  gentle  folds,  beyond  the  power 
of  a  giant  to  burst;  and  day  and    night  the 


same  vision  yawned  before  him — an  open 
grave  in  the  corner  of  the  hill  burial-ground 
without  any  kirk. 

Flora  knew  that  his  days  were  indeed  num- 
bered ;  for  when  had  he  ever  been  afraid  of 
death — and  could  his  spirit  have  quailed  thus 
under  a  mere  common  dream  1  Soon  was  she 
to  be  all  alone  in  this  world ;  yei  when  Ranald 
should  die,  she  felt  that  her  own  days  would 
not  be  many,  and  there  was  sudden  and  strong 
comfort  in  the  belief  that  they  would  be  buried 
in  one  grave. 

Such  were  her  words  to  the  dying  man  ;  and 
all  at  once  he  took  her  in  his  arms,  and  asked 
her  "  If  she  had  no  fears  of  the  narrow  house?" 
His  whole  nature  seemed  to  undergo  a  change 
untler  the  calm  voice  of  her  reply ;  and  he 
said,  "  Dost  thou  fear  not  then,  my  Flora,  to 
hear  the  words  of  doom  1"  "Blessed  will  ihey 
be,  if  in  death  we  be  not  disunited."  "Thou 
too,  my  wife — for  my  wife  thou  now  art  on 
earth,  and  mayest  be  so  in  heaven — thou  too. 
Flora,  wert  seen  shrouded  in  that  apparition." 
It  was  a  gentle  and  gracious  summer  night — 
so  clear,  that  the  shepherds  on  the  hills  were 
scarcely  sensible  of  the  morning's  dawn.  And 
there,  at  earliest  daylight,  were  Ranald  and 
Flora  found,  on  the  greensward,  among  the  tall 
heather,  lying  side  by  side,  with  their  calm 
faces  up  to  heaven,  and  never  more  to  smile 
or  weep  in  this  mortal  world. 


ANHOUR^S  TALK  ABOUT  POETRY. 


OuHs  is  a  poetical  age ;  but  has  it  produced 
one  Great  Poem  1  Not  one. 

Just  look  at  them  for  a  moment.  There  is 
the  Pleasures  of  Memory — an  elegant,  grace- 
ful, beautiful,  pensive,  and  pathetic  poem, 
which  it  does  one's  eyes  good  to  gaze  on — 
one's  ears  good  to  listen  to — one's  very  fingers 
good  to  touch,  so  smooth  is  the  versification 
and  the  wire-wove  paper.  Never  will  the 
Pleasures  of  Memory  be  forgotten  till  the 
world  is  in  its  dotage.  But  is  it  a  Great 
Poem  ?  About  as  much  so  as  an  ant-hill, 
prettily  grass-grown  and  leaf-strewn,  is  a  moun- 
tain purple  with  heather  and  golden  with  woods. 
It  is  a  symmetrical  erection — in  the  shape  of 
a  cone — and  the  apex  points  heavenwards  ; 
but  'tis  not  a  sky-piercer.  You  take  it  at  a 
nop — and  pursue  your  journey.  Yet  it  en- 
dures. For  the  rains  and  the  dews,  and  the 
airs,  and  the  sunshine,  love  the  fairy  knoll, 
and  there  it  greens  and  blossoms  delicately  and 
delightfully;  you  hardly  know  whether  a  work 
of  art  or  a  work  of  nature. 

Then,  there  is  the  poetry  of  Crabbe.  We 
hear  it  is  not  very  popular. '  If  so,  then  neither 
IS  human  life.  For  of  all  our  poets,  he  has 
most  skilfully  woven  the  web  and  woven  the 
woof  of  all  his  compositions  with  the  materials 
of  human  life — homespun  indeed  ;  but  though 
often  coarse,  always  strong — and  though  set 
to  plain  patterns,  yet  not  unfrequently  exceed- 
ing fine  is  the  old  weaver's  workmanship.    Ay 


— hold  up  the  product  of  his  loom  between 
your  eye  and  the  light,  and  it  plows  and  glim- 
mers like  the  peacock's  back  or  the  breast  of 
the  rainbow.  Sometimes  it  seems  to  be  but 
of  the  "hodden  gray;"  when  sunbeam  or 
shadow  smites  if,  and  lo  !  it  is  hurni>hed  like 
the  regal  purple.  But  did  the  Boroughmonger 
ever  produce  a  Great  Poem  ?  You  might  as 
well  ask  if  he  built  St.  Paul's. 

Breathes  not  the  man  with  a  more  poetical 
temperament  than  Bowles.  No  wonder  that 
his  old  eyes  are  still  so  lustrous ;  for  they 
possess  the  sacred  gift  of  beautifying  creation, 
by  shedding  over  it  the  charm  of  melancholy. 
"Pleasant  but  mournful  to  the  soul  is  the  me- 
mory of  joys  that  are  past" — is  the  text  we 
should  choose  were  we  about  to  preach  on  his 
genius.  No  vain  repinings,  no  idle  regrets, 
does  his  spirit  now  breathe  over  the  still  re- 
ceding Past.  But  time-sanctified  are  all  the 
sho%vs  that  arise  before  his  pensive  imagina- 
tion ;  and  the  common  light  of  day,  once  gone, 
in  his  poetry  seems  to  shine  as  if  it  had  all 
been  dying  sunset  or  moonlight,  or  the  new- 
born dawn.  His  human  sensibilities  are  so 
fine  as  to  be  in  themselves  poetical;  and  his 
poetical  aspirations  so  delicate  as  to  be  felt 
always  human.  Hence  his  Sonnets  have  oeen 
dear  to  poets — having  in  them  "  more  than 
meets  the  ear" — spiritual  breathings  thai  hang 
around  the  words  like  light  around  fair  flowers; 
and  hence,  too,  have  they  been  beloved  by  all 


AN  HOUR'S  TALK  ABOUT  POETRY. 


73 


natural  hearts  who,  having  not  the  "faculty 
divine,"  have  yet  the  "  vision" — that  is,  the 
power  of  seeing  and  of  hearing  the  sights  and 
the  sounds  which  genius  alone  can  awaken, 
bringing  them  from  afar  out  of  the  dust  and 
dimness  of  evanishment. 

Mr.  Bowles  has  been  a  poet  for  good  fifty 
years ;  and  if  his  genius  do  not  burn  quite  so 
bright  as  it  did  some  lustres  bygone — yet  we 
do  not  say  there  is  any  abatement  even  of  its 
brightness :  it  shines  with  a  mellower  and 
also  with  a  more  cheerful  light.  Long  ago,  he 
was  perhaps  rather  too  pensive — too  melan- 
chol)' — too  pathetic — too  wo-begone — in  too 
great  bereavement.  Like  the  nightingale,  he 
sung  with  a  thorn  at  his  breast — from  which 
one  wondered  the  point  had  not  been  broken 
off  by  perpetual  pressure.  Yet,  though  rather 
monotonous,  his  strains  were  most  musical  as 
well  as  melancholy ;  feeling  was  often  re- 
lieved by  fancy  ;  and  one  dreamed,  in  listening 
to  his  elegies,  and  hymns,  and  sonnets,  of 
moonlit  rivers  flowing  through  hoary  woods, 
and  of  the  yellow  sands  of  dim-imaged  seas 
murmuring  round  "the  shores  of  old  Ro- 
mance." A  fine  enthusiasm  too  was  his — in 
those  youthful  years — inspired  by  the  poetry 
of  Greece  and  Rome;  and  in  some  of  his  hap- 
piest inspirations  there  was  a  delightful  and 
original  union — to  be  found  nowhere  else  that 
we  can  remember— of  the  spirit  of  that  an- 
cient song — the  pure  classical  spirit  that  mur- 
mured by  the  banks  of  the  Eu  rotas  and  Ilissus 
with  that  of  our  own  poetry,  that  like  a  noble 
Naiad  dwells  in  the  "  clear  well  of  English  un- 
defiled."  In  almost  all  his  strains  you  felt  the 
scholar;  but  his  was  no  affected  or  pedantic 
scholarship — intrusive  most  when  least  re- 
quired ;  but  the  growth  of  a  consummate  clas- 
sical education,  of  which  the  career  was  not 
inglorious  among  the  towers  of  Oxford.  Bowles 
was  a  pupil  of  the  Wartons — Joe  and  Tom — 
God  bless  their  souls  ! — and  his  name  may  be 
joined,  not  unworthily,  with  theirs — and  with 
Mason's,  and  (Jray's,  and  Collins's — academics 
all ;  the  works  of  them  all  showing  a  delicate 
and  exqui.site  colouring  of  classical  art,  enrich- 
ing their  own  English  nature.  Bowles's  muse  is 
always  loath  to  forget — wherever  she  roam  or 
linger — Winchester  and  Oxford — the  Itchin 
and  the  Isis.  None  educated  in  those  delight- 
ful and  divine  haunts  will  ever  forget  them, 
who  can  read  Homer  and  Pindar,  and  Sopho- 
cles, and  Theocritus,  and  Bion,  and  Moschus, 
in  the  original ;  Rhedicyna's  ungrateful  or 
renegade  sons  are  those  alone  who  pursued 
their  poetical  studies — in  translations.  They 
never  knew  the  nature  of  the  true  old  Greek 
Sre. 

But  has  Bowles  written  a  Great  Poem  1  If 
he  has,  publish  it,  and  we  shall  make  him  a 
Bishop. 

What  shall  we  say  of  the  Pleasures  of 
Hope  1  That  the  harp  from  which  that  music 
breathed,  was  an  ^Eolian  harp  placed  in  the 
window  of  a  high  hall,  to  catch  airs  from 
heaven  when  heaven  was  glad,  as  well  she 
might  be  with  such  moon  and  such  stars,  and 
streamering  half  the  region  with  a  magnificent 
aurora  borealis.  Now  the  music  deepens  into 
a  majestic  march — now  it  swells  into  a  holy 
10 


hymn — and  now  it  dies  away  elegiac-like,  as 
if  mourning  over  a  tomb.  Vague,  indefinite, 
uncertain,  dream-like,  and  visionary  all;  but 
never  else  than  beautiful;  and  ever  and  anon, 
we  know  not  why,  sublime.  It  ceases  in  the 
hush  of  night — and  we  awaken  as  if  from  a 
dream.  Is  it  not  even  so  1 — In  his  youth 
Campbell  lived  where  "  distant  isles  could 
hear  the  loud  Corbrechtan  roar;"  and  some- 
times his  poetry  is  like  that  whirlpool — the 
sound  as  of  the  wheels  of  many  chariots.  Yes, 
happy  was  it  for  him  that  he  had  liberty  to 
roam  along  the  many-based,  hollow-rumbling 
western  coast  of  that  unaccountable  county 
Argyleshire.  The  sea-roar  cultivated  his  natu- 
rally fine  musical  ear,  and  it  sank  too  into  his 
heart.  Hence  is  his  prime  Poem  bright  with 
hope  as  is  the  sunny  sea  when  sailor's  sweet- 
hearts on  the  shore  are  looking  out  for  ships; 
and  from  a  foreign  station  down  comes  the 
fleet  before  the  wind,  and  the  very  shells  be- 
neath their  footsteps  seem  to  sing  for  joy.  As 
for  Gertrude  of  Wyoming,  we  love  her  as  if 
she  were  our  own  only  daughter — filling  our 
life  with  bliss,  and  then  leaving  it  desolate. 
Even  now  we  see  her  ghost  gliding  through 
those  giant  woods  !  As  for  Lochiel's  Warn- 
ing, there  was  heard  the  voice  of  the  Last  of 
the  Seers.  The  Second  Sight  is  now  extin- 
guished in  the  Highland  glooms — the  Lament 
wails  no  more, 

"That  man  may  not  hide  what  God  would  reveal !" 

The  Navy  owes  much  to  "  Ye  mariners  of 
England."  Sheer  hulks  often  seemed  ships 
till  that  strain  arose — but  ever  since  in  our 
imagination  have  they  brightened  the  roaring 
ocean.  And  dare  we  say,  after  that,  that  Camp- 
bell has  never  written  a  Great  Poem  ]  Yes — 
in  the  face  even  of  the  Metropolitan  ! 

It  was  said  many  long  years  ago  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  that  none  but  maudlin 
milliners  and  sentimental  ensigns  supposed 
that  James  Montgomery  was  a  poet.  Then  is 
Maga  a  maudlin  milliner — and  Christopher 
North  a  sentimental  ensign.  We  once  called 
Montgomery  a  Moravian ;  and  though  he  as- 
sures us  that  we  were  mistaken,  yet  having 
made  an  assertion,  we  always  stick  to  it,  and 
therefore  he  must  remain  a  Moravian,  if  not  in 
his  own  belief,  yet  in  ours.  Of  all  religious 
sects,  the  Moravians  are  the  most  simple- 
minded,  pure-hearted,  and  high-souled — and 
these  qualities  shine  serenely  in  the  Pelican 
Island.  In  earnestness  and  fervour,  that  poem 
is  by  fe\<'  or  none  excelled ;  it  is  embalmed  in 
sincerity,  and  therefore  shall  fade  not  away; 
neither  shall  it  moulder — not  even  although 
exposed  to  the  air,  and  blow  the  air  ever  so 
rudely  through  time's  mutations.  Not  that  it 
is  a  mummy.  Say  rather  a  fair  form  laid 
asleep  in  immortality — its  face  wearing,  day 
and  night,  summer  and  winter,  look  at  it  when 
you  will,  a  saintly — a  celestial  smile.  That  is 
a  true  image;  but  is  the  Pelican  Island  a  Great 
Poem  1     We  pause  not  for  a  reply. 

Lyrical  Poetry,  we  opine,  hath  many  branches 
— and  one  of  them  "  beautiful  exceedingly" 
with  bud,  blossom,  and  fruit  of  balm  and  bright- 
ness, round  which  is  ever  heard  the  murmur 
of  bees  and  of  birds,  hangs  trailingly  along 
the  mossy  greensward  when  the  air  is  calua^ 


74 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


and  ever  and  anon,  when  blow  the  fitful  breezes, 
it  is  uplifted  in  the  sunshine,  and  glows  wav- 
ingly  aloft,  as  if  it  belonged  even  to  the  loftiest 
region  of  the  Tree  which  is  Amaranth.  That 
is  a  fanciful,  perhaps  foolish  form  of  expres- 
sion, employed  at  present  to  signify  Song-writ- 
ing. Now,  of  all  the  song-writers  that  ever 
■warbled,  or  chanted,  or  sung,  the  best,  in  our 
estimation,  is  verily  none  other  than  Thomas 
Moore.  True  that  Robert  Burns  has  indited 
many  songs  that  slip  into  the  heart,  just  like 
light,  no  one  knows  how,  filling  its  chambers 
sweetly  and  silently,  and  leaving  it  nothing 
more  to  desire  for  perfect  contentment.  Or 
let  us  say,  sometimes  when  he  sings,  it  is  like 
listening  to  a  linnet  in  the  broom,  a  blackbird 
in  the  brake,  a  laverock  in  the  sky.  They  sing 
in  the  fulness  of  their  joy,  as  nature  teaches 
them — and  so  did  he  ;  and  the  man,  woman,  or 
child,  who  is  delighted  not  with  such  singing, 
be  their  virtues  what  they  may,  must  never 
hope  to  be  in  Heaven.  Gracious  Providence 
placed  Burns  in  the  midst  of  the  sources  of 
Lyrical  Poetry — when  he  was  born  a  Scfittish 
peasant.  Now,  Moore  is  an  Irishman,  and 
was  born  in  Dublin.  Moore  is  a  Greek  scholar, 
and  translated — after  a  fashion — Anncrenn. 
And  Moore  has  lived  much  in  towns  and  cities 
— and  in  that  society  whch  will  sulT'cr  none 
else  to  be  called  good.  Some  Jidvantages  he 
has  enjoyed  which  Burns  never  did — but  then 
how  many  disadvantages  has  he  undergone, 
from  which  the  Ayrshire  Ploughman,  in  the 
bondage  of  his  poverty,  was  free !  You  see 
all  that  at  a  single  glance  into  their  poetry. 
But  all  in  humble  life  is  not  high — all  in  hi^h 
life  is  not  low;  and  there  is  as  much  to  guard 
against  in  hovel  as  in  hall — in  "  auld  clay- 
bigging"  as  in  marble  palace.  Burns  some- 
times wrote  like  a  mere  boor — Moore  has  too 
often  written  like  a  mere  man  of  fashion.  But 
take  them  both  at  their  best — and  both  are  ini- 
mitable. Both  are  national  poets — and  who 
•ihall  say,  that  if  Moore  had  been  born  and 
bred  a  peasant,  as  Burns  was,  and  if  Ireland 
had  been  such  a  land  of  knowledge,  and  virtue, 
and  religion  as  Scotland  is — and  surely,  with- 
out offence,  wc  may  say  that  it  never  was,  and 
never  will  be — though  we  love  the  Green 
Island  well — that  with  his  fine  fancy,  warm 
heart,  and  exquisite  sensibilities,  he  might  not 
have  been  as  natural  a  lyrist  as  Burns;  while, 
take  him  as  he  is,  who  can  deny  that  in  rich- 
ness, in  variety,  in  grace,  and  in  the  power  of 
art,  he  is  superior  to  the  ploughman.  Of  Lal- 
lah  Rookh  and  the  Loves  of  the  Angels,  wc 
defy  you  to  read  a  page  without  admiration; 
but  the  question  recurs,  and  it  is  easily  an- 
swered, we  need  not  say  in  the  negative,  did 
Moore  ever  write  a  Great  Poem  ? 

Let  us  make  a  tour  of  the  Lakes.  Rvdal 
Mount!  Wordsworth!  The  Bard !  Here  is 
the  man  who  has  devoted  his  whole  life  to 
poetry.  It  is  his  profession.  He  is  a  poet 
just  as  his  brother  is  a  clergyman.  He  is  the 
Head  of  the  Lake  School,  just  as  his  brother 
is  Master  of  Trinity.  Nothing  in  this  life  and 
in  this  world  has  he  had  to  do,  beneath  sun, 
Diopr.  and  stars,  but 

"To  miirrmir  Iiy  tlip  liviiic  tunoks 
A  music  sweeter  thiin  their  own." 


What  has  been  the  result?  Seven  volumes 
(oh  !  why  not  seven  more  ?)  of  poetry,  as 
beautiful  as  ever  charmed  the  ears  of  Pan  and 
of  Apollo.  The  earth — the  middle  air — the  sky 
— the  heaven — the  heart,  mind,  and  soul  of 
man — are  "the  haunt  and  main  region  of  his 
song."  In  describing  external  nature  as  she  is, 
no  poet  perhaps  has  excelled  Wordsworth — 
not  even  Thomson;  in  embuingher  and  mak- 
ing her  pregnant  with  spiritualities,  till  the 
mighty  mother  teems  with  "beauty  far  more 
beauteous"  than  she  had  ever  rejoiced  in  till 
such  communion — he  excels  all  the  brother- 
hood. Therein  lies  his  special  glory,  and 
therein  the  immorliil  evidences  of  the  might 
of  his  creative  imagination.  All  men  at  times 
"  muse  on  nature  with  a  poet's  eye," — but 
Wordsworth  ever — and  his  soul  has  grown 
more  and  more  reliirious  from  such  worship. 
Every  rock  is  an  altar — ever)'  grove  a  shrine 
We  fear  that  there  will  be  sectarians  even  in 
this  Natural  Religion  till  the  end  of  time. 
But  he  is  the  High  Priest  of  Nature — or,  to  use 
his  own  words,  or  nearly  so,  he  is  the  High 
Priest  "in  the  metropolitan  temple  built  in  the 
heart  of  mighty  poets."  But  has  he — even  he 
— ever  written  a  Great  Poem  ?  If  he  has — it 
is  not  the  Excursion.  Nay,  the  Excursiun  is 
not  a  Poem.  It  is  a  Series  of  Poems,  all 
swimming  in  the  light  of  poetry;  some  of 
them  sweet  and  simple,  some  elegant  and 
graceful,  some  beautiful  and  most  lovely,  some 
of  "  strength  and  state,"  some  majestic,  some 
magnificent,  some  sublime.  But  though  it 
has  an  opening,  it  has  no  beginning;  you  can 
discover  the  middle  only  by  the  numerals  on 
the  page;  and  the  most  serious  apprehensions 
have  been  ver>-  generally  entertained  that  it 
has  no  end.  While  Pedlar,  Poet,  and  Solitary 
breathe  the  vital  air,  may  the  Excursion,  stop 
where  it  will,  be  renewed  ;  and  as  in  its  pre- 
sent shajjc  it  comprehends  but  a  Three  Days* 
Walk,  wc  have  but  to  think  of  an  Excursion 
of  three  weeks,  three  months,  or  three  years, 
to  have  some  idea  of  Eternity.  Then  the  life 
of  man  is  not  always  limited  to  the  term  of 
threescore  and  ten  years.  What  a  Jonrnal 
mitrht  it  prove  at  last!  Poetry  in  profusion 
till  the  land  overflowed;  but  whether  in  one 
volume,  as  now,  or  in  fifty,  in  future,  not  a 
Great  Poem — nay,  not  a  Poem  at  all — nor  ever 
to  be  so  esteemed,  till  the  principles  on  which 
Great  Poets  bnild  the  lofty  rhyme  are  exploded, 
and  the  verj'  names  of  .Art  and  Science  smoth- 
ered and  lost  in  the  bosom  of  Nature  from 
which  they  arose. 

Let  the  dullest  clod  that  ever  vegetated,  pro- 
vided only  he  be  alive  and  hear,  be  shut  up  in 
a  room  with  Coleridge,  or  in  a  wood,  and  snh 
jected  for  a  few  minutes  to  the  ethereal  influ- 
ence of  that  wonderful  man's  monologue,  and 
he  will  begin  to  believe  himself  a  Poet.  The 
barren  wilderness  may  not  blossom  like  the 
rose,  but  it  will  seem,  or  rather  feel  to  do  so,  un- 
der the  lustre  of  an  imagination  exhausilessas 
the  sun.  You  mav  have  seen  perhaps  rocks 
suddenly  so  glorified  by  sunlight  with  colours 
manifold,  that  the  bees  seek  them,  deluded  by 
the  show  of  flowers.  The  sun.  you  know,  does 
not  always  show  his  orb  even  in  the  daytime— 
and  people  are  often   ignorant  of  his  place  ia 


AN  HOUR'S  TALK  ABOUT  POETRY. 


T5 


the  firmament.     But  he  keeps  shining  away  at 
his  leisure,  as  you  would  know  were  he  to  suf- 
fer eclipse.     Perhaps   he — the  sun — is   at   no 
other  time  a  more  delightful    luminary   than 
when  he  is  pleased  to  dispense   his   influence 
through  a  general  haze,  or  mist — softening  all 
the  day  till  meridian  is  almost  like  the  after- 
noon,   and   the  grove,  anticipating   gloaming, 
bursts  into  "dance  and  minstrelsy"  ere  the  god 
go  down  into  the  sea.     Clouds  too  become  him 
well — whether  thin  and  fleecy  and  braided,  or 
piled  up  all  round  about  him  castle-wise  and 
cathedral-fashion,  to  say  nothing  of  temples  and 
other   metropolitan   structures;  nor  is  il  rea- 
sonable to  find  fault  with  him,  when,  as  naked 
as    the  hour  he  was  born,  "  he  flames  on  the 
forehead  of  the  morning  sky."     The  grandeur 
too   of  his  appearance  on  setting,  has  become 
quite  proverbial.    Now  in  all    this  he  resem- 
bles Coleridge.     It  is  easy  to  talk — not  very 
difficult   to  speechify — hard  to  speak  ;  but   to 
"discourse"  is  a  gift  rarely  bestowed  by  Hea- 
ven on  mortal    man.     Coleridge  has  it  in  per- 
fection.    While   he  is  discoursing,  the  world 
loses  all  its  commonplaces,  and  you  and   your 
wife  imagine  yourself  .\damandEve  listenins 
to   the  aflable  archangel  Raphael  in  the  Gar 
den  of  Eden.     You  would  no   more  dream  of 
wishing  him  to  be  mute  for  awhile,  than  you 
would  a  river  that  "imposes  silence  with  a  stil- 
ly sound."     Whether  you  understand  two  con- 
secutive sentences,  we  shall  not  stop  too  curi- 
ously to  inquire  ;  but  you  do-something  belter, 
you  feel  the  whole  just  like  any  other  divine 
music.     And  'tis  your  own  fault  if  you  do  not 
"A  wiser  and  a  better  man  arise  to-morrow's  morn." 
Reason  is  said  to  be  one  faculty,  and  Imagina- 
tion another — but   there  cannot  be   a  grosser 
mistake  ;  they  are  one  and  indivisible  ;  only  in 
most  cases  ihey  live  like  cat  and  dog,  in  mutual 
worrying,  or  haply  sue  for  a  divorce  ;  whereas 
in  the  case  of  Coleridge  they  are  one  spirit  as 
well  as  one  flesh,  and  keep  billing  and  cooing 
in  a  perpetual  honey-moon.     Then  his  mind  is 
learned  in  all  the  learning  of  the  Egyptians,  as 
well  as  the  Greeks  and  Romans  ;  and  though 
we  have  heard  simpletons   say  that  he  knows 
nothing  of    science,  we   have  heard  him   on 
chemistry   puzzle  Sir   Humphrey   Davy — and 
prove  to  his  own  entire  satisfaction,  that  Leib- 
nitz and  Newton,  though   good  men,  were  but 
indifi'erent  astronomers.     Besides,    he   thinks 
nothing  of  inventing  a   new   science,  with  a 
complete  nomenclature,   in   a  twinkling — and 
•should  you  seem  sluggish  of  apprehension,  he 
«*ndows  )'ou  with  an  additional  sense   or  two. 
over  and  above  the  usual  seven,  till  you  are  no 
longer  at  a  loss,  be  it  even  to  scent  the  music 
of  fragrance,  or  to  hear  the  smell  of  a  balmy 
piece  of  poetry.     All  the  faculties,  both  of  soul 
and  sense,  seem  amicably  to  interchange  their 
functions  and  their  provinces  ;  and  you  fear 
not   that   the  dream    may  dissolve,  persuaded 
that  you   are   in  a  future  state   of  permanent 
enjoyment.     Nor  are  we  now  using  any  exag- 
geration ;  for  if  you  will  but  think  how  unut- 
terably dull  are  all   the  ordinary  sayings  and 
doings  of  this  life,  spent  as  it  is  with  ordinary 
people,  you   may  imagine  how  in  sweet  deliri- 
um you  may  be   robbed  of  yourself  by  a  se- 
raphic tongue  that  has  fed  since  first  it  lisped 


on  "honey-dew,"  and  by  lips  that  have  "breath- 
ed the  air  of  Paradise,"  and  learned  a  seraphic 
language,  which,  all  the  while  that  it  is  Eng- 
lish, is  as  grand  as  Greek  and  as  soft  as 
Italian.  We  only  know  this,  that  Coleridge  is 
the  alchymist  that  in  his  crucible  melts  dowa 
hours  to  moments— and  lo!  diamonds  sprinkled 
on  a  plate  of  gold. 

W'hat  a  world  would  this  be  were  all  its  in- 
habitants to  fiddle  like  Paganini,  ride  like  Du- 
crow,  discourse  like  Coleridge,  and  do  every 
thing  else  in  a  style  of  equal  perfection  !  But 
pray,  how  does  a  man  write  poetry  with  a  pea 
upon  paper,  who  thus  is  perpetually  pouring 
it  from  his  inspired  lipsl  Read  the  Ancient 
.Mariner,  the  Nightingale,  and  Genevieve.  la 
the  first,  you  shudder  at  the  superstition  of  the 
sea — in  the  second,  you  thrill  with  the  melo- 
dies of  the  woods — in  the  third,  earth  is  like 
heaven  ; — for  you  are  made  to  feel  that 

"All  thoughts,  all  passions,  all  delights, 
Whatever  stirs  this  mortal  frame 
All  are  but  ministers  of  Love, 
And  feed  his  sacred  liume  ;" 

Has  Coleridge,  then,  ever  written  a  Great 
Poem  1  No ;  for  besides  the  Regions  of  the 
Fair,  the  Wild,  and  the  Wonderful,  there  is 
another  up  to  which  his  wing  might  not  soar; 
though  the  plumes  are  strong  as  soft.  But 
why  should  he  who  loveth  to  take  "  the  wings 
of  a  dove  that  he  may  flee  away"  to  the  bo- 
som of  beauty,  though  there  never  for  a  mo- 
ment to  be  at  rest — why  should  he,  like  an 
eagle,  soar  into  the  storms  that  roll  above  this 
visible  diurnal  sphere  in  peals  of  perpetual 
thunder  ? 

Wordsworth,  somewhere  or  other,  remon- 
strates, rather  angrily,  with  the  Public,  against 
her  obstinate  ignorance  shown  in  persisting  to 
put  into  one  class,  himself,  Coleridge,  and 
Southey,  as  birds  of  a  feather,  that  not  only 
flock  together  but  warble  the  same  sort  of 
song.  But  he  elsewhere  tells  us  that  he  and 
Coleridge  hold  the  same  principles  in  the  Art 
Poetical ;  and  among  his  Lyrical  Ballads  he 
admitted  the  three  finest  compositions  of  his 
illustrious  Compeer.  The  Public,  therefore, 
is  not  to  blame  in  taking  him  at  his  word,  even 
if  she  had  discerned  no  family  likeness  in 
their  genius.  Southey  certainly  resembles 
Wordsworth  less  than  Coleridge  does  ;  but  he 
lives  at  Keswick,  which  is  but  some  dozen 
miles  from  Rydal,  and  perhaps  with  an  unphi- 
losophical  though  pensive  Public  that  link  of 
connection  should  be  allowed  to  be  sufficient, 
even  were  there  no  other  less  patent  and  ma- 
terial than  the  Macadamized  turnpike  road. 
But  true  it  is  and  of  verity,  that  Southey, 
among  our  living  Poets,  stands  aloof  and  "alone 
in  his  glory ;"  for  he  alone  of  them  all  has  ad- 
ventured to  illustrate,  in  Poems  of  magnitude, 
the  difllerent  characters,  customs,  and  manners 
of  nations.  Joan  of  Arc  is  an  English  and 
French  story — Thalaba,  Arabian — Kehama, In- 
dian— Madoc,  Welsh  and  American — and  Ro 
derick,  Spanish  and  Moorish  ;  nor  would  it  be 
easy  lo  say  (setting  aside  the  first,  which  was 
a  very  youthful  work)  in  which  of  these  noble 
Poems  Mr.  Southey  has  most  successfully  per- 
formed an  achievement  entirely  beyond  the 
power  of  any  but  the  highest  genius.    In  Ma- 


76 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


doc,  and  especially  in  Roderick,  he  has  relied 
on  the  truth  of  nature — as  it  is  seen  in  the  his- 
tory of  great  national  transactions  and  events. 
In  Thalaba  and  in  Kehama,  though  in  them, 
too,  he  has  brought  to  bear  an  almost  bound- 
less lore,  he  follows  the  leading  of  Fancy  and 
Imagination,  and  walks  in  a  world  of  wonders. 
Seldom,  if  ever,  has  one  and  the  same  Poet 
exhibited  such  power  in  such  different  kinds 
of  Poetry— in  Truth  a  Master,  and  in  Fiction 
a  Magician. 

It  is  easy  to  assert  that  he  draws  on  his  vast 
stores  of  knowledge  gathered  from  books — and 
that  we  have  but  to  look  at  the  multifiirious 
accumulation  of  notes  appended  to  his  great 
Poems  to  see  that  they  are  not  Inventions. 
The  materials  of  poetry  indeed  are  there— c^ftcn 
the  raw  materials — seldom  more  ;  but  the  Ima- 
gination that  moulded  them  into  beautiful,  or 
magnificent,  or  wondrous  shapes,  is  all  his 
own — and  has  shown  itself  most  creative. 
Southey  never  was  among  the  Arabians  nor 
Hindoos,  and  therefore  had  to  trust  to  travel- 
lers. But  had  he  not  been  a  Poet  he  might 
have  read  till  he  was  blind,  nor  ever  seen 

"Tlie  palm-grove  inlanded  amid  tlie  waste,'' 
where  with  Oneiza  in  her  Father's  Tent 

"  How  happily  the  years  of  Thnlaba  went  by !" 

In  what  guidance  but  that  of  his  own  genius 
did  he  descend  with  the  Destroyer  into  the  Dom- 
daniel  Caves  ?  And  who  showed  him  the 
Swcrga's  Bowers  of  Bliss?  Who  built  for 
him  with  ail  its  palaces  that  submarine  City  of 
the  Dead,  safe  in  its  far-down  silence  from  the 
superficial  thunder  of  the  sea  ?  The  greatness 
as  well  as  the  originality  of  Southcy's  genius 
is  seen  in  the  conceptiim  of  every  one  of  his 
Five  Chief  Works — with  the  exception  of  Joan 
of  Arc,  which  was  written  in  very  early  youth, 
and  is  chiefly  distinguished  by  a  fine  enthu- 
siasm. They  are  one  and  all  National  Poems 
— wonderfully  true  to  the  customs  and  charac- 
ters of  the  inhabitants  of  the  countries  in  which 
are  laid  the  scenes  of  all  their  various  adven- 
tures and  enterprises — and  the  Poet  has  en- 
tirely succeeded  in  investing  with  an  individual 
interest  each  representative  of  a  race.  Thala- 
ba is  a  true  Arab — Madoc  a  true  Briton — King 
Roderick  indeed  the  Last  of  the  Goths.  Keha- 
ma is  a  personage  whom  we  can  be  made  to 
imagine  only  in  Hindoslan.  Sir  Walter  con- 
fined himself  in  his  poetry  to  Scotland— except 
in  Rokeby — and  his  might  then  went  not  with 
him  across  the  Border ;  though  in  his  novels 
and  romances  he  was  at  home  when  abroad — 
and  nowhere  else  more  gloriously  than  with 
Saladin  in  the  Desert.  Lalla  Rookh  is  full  of 
orilliant  poetry;  and  one  of  the  series — the 
Fire  Worshippers — is  Moore's  highest  effort; 
but  the  whole  is  too  elaborately  Oriental — and 
often  in  pure  weariness  of  all  that  accumula- 
tion of  the  gorgeous  imagery  of  the  East,  we 
shut  up  the  false  glitter,  and  tliank  Heaven 
that  we  are  in  one  of  the  bleakest  and  barest 
corners  of  the  West.  But  Southey's  magic  is 
.nore  potent — and  he  was  privileged  to  ex- 
claim— 

"  Come,  listen  to  a  tale  of  times  of  old  ! 
Come,  for  ye  know  me.     lam  he  who  framed- 
Of  Thalaba  the  wild  and  wondrous  song. 


Come  listen  to  my  lay.  and  ye  shall  hear 

How  Madoc  from'lhf-  shores  of  Britain  spread 

The  adventurous  sail,  explored  the  ocean  path, 

And  qucll'd  barbaric  power,  and  overthrew 

The  bloody  altars  of  idolatry. 

And  platited  on  its  fanes  triumphantly 

The  Cross  of  Christ.    Come,  listen  to  my  lay." 

Of  all  his  chief  Poems  the  conception  and  the 
execution  are  original ;  in  much  faulty  and  im- 
perfect both  ;  but  bearing  throughout  the  im- 
press of  original  power ;  and  breathing  a  moral 
charm,  in  the  midst  of  the  wildest  and  some- 
times even  extravagant  imaginings,  that  shall 
preserve  them  for  ever  froin  oblivion,  embalm- 
ing them  in  the  spirit  of  delight  and  of  love. 
Fairy  Tales — or  tales  of  witchcraft  and  en- 
chantment, seldom  stir  the  holiest  and  deepest 
feelings  of  the  heart;  but  Thalaba  and  Keha- 
ma do  so;  "the  still  sad  mu^ic  of  humanity" 
is  ever  with  us  among  all  most  wonderful  and 
wild  ;  and  of  all  the  spells,  and  charms,  and  ta- 
lismans that  are  seen  working  strange  effects 
before  our  eyes,  the  strongest  arc  ever  felt  to 
be  Piety  and  Virtue.  What  exquisite  pictures 
of  domestic  alFection  and  bliss  !  what  sanctity 
and  devotion  !  Meek  as  a  child  is  Innocence 
in  Southey's  poetry,  but  mightier  than  any 
giant.  Whether  matron  or  maid,  mother  or 
daughter — in  joy  or  sorrow — as  they  appear 
before  us,  doing  or  suffering,  "beautiful  and 
dutiful,"  with  Faith,  Hope  and  Charity  their 
guardian  angels,  nor  Fear  ever  once  crossing 
their  path  !  We  feel,  in  perusing  such  pic- 
tures— "  Purity!  thy  name  is  woman  !"  and  are 
not  these  Great  Poems  1  We  are  silent.  But 
should  you  answer  "yes,"  from  us  in  our  pre- 
sent mood  you  shall  receive  no  contradiction. 

The  transition  always  seems  to  us,  we 
scarcely  know  why,  as  natural  as  delightful 
from  Southey  to  Scott.  They  alone  of  all  the 
poets  of  the  day  have  produced  poems  in  which 
are  pictured  and  narrated,  epicly,  national  cha- 
racters, and  events,  and  actions,  and  catastro- 
phes. Southey  has  heroically  invaded  foreign 
countries;  Scott  as  heroically  brought  his 
power  to  bear  on  his  own  people;  and  both 
have  achieved  immortal  triumphs.  But  Scot- 
land is  proud  of  her  great  national  minstrel — 
and  as  long  as  she  is  Scotland,  will  wash  and 
warm  the  laurels  round  his  brow,  with  rains 
and  winds  that  will  for  ever  keep  brightening 
their  glossy  verdure.  Whereas  England,  un- 
grateful ever  to  her  men  of  genius,  already 
often  forgets  the  poetry  of  Southey;  while 
Little  Britain  abuses  his  patriotism  in  his  po- 
litics. The  truth  is,  that  Scotland  had  forgotten 
her  own  history  till  Sir  W'alter  burnished  it  all 
up  till  it  glowed  again — it  is  hard  to  say  whe- 
ther in  his  poetry  or  in  his  prose  the  brightest — 
and  the  past  became  the  present.  We  know 
now  the  character  of  our  own  people  as  it 
showed  .itself  in  war  and  peace— *in  palace, 
castle,  hall,  hut,  hovel,  and  shieling — through 
centuries  of  advancing  civilization,  from  the 
time  when  Edinburgh  was  first  ycleped  .\ulJ 
Reekie,  down  to  the  period  when  the  bright 
idea  first  occurred  to  her  inhabitants  to  call 
her  the  Modern  .\thens.  This  he  has  effected 
by  means  of  about  one  hundred  volumes,  each 
exhibiting  to  the  life  about  fifty  characters,  and 
each  character  not  only  an  individual  in  him- 
self or  herself,  but  the  renresentative — so  we 


AN  HOUR'S  TALK  ABOUT  TOETRY. 


77 


offer  to  prove  if  jou  be  skeptical — of  a  distinct 
class  or  order  of  human  beings,  from  the  Mo- 
narch to  the  Mendicant,  from  the  Queen  to  the 
Gipsy,  from  the  Bruce  to  the  Moniplies,  from 
Mary  Stuart  to  Jenny  Dennisoun.  We  shall 
never  say  that  Scott  is  Shakspeare;  but  we 
shall  say  that  he  has  conceived  and  created — 
you  know  the  meaning  of  these  words — as 
many  characters — real  living  flesh-and-blood 
human  beings — naturally,  truly,  and  consist- 
ently, as  Shakspeare;  who,  always  transcend- 
antly  great  in  pictures  of  the  passions — out  of 
their  range,  which  surely  does  not  comprehend 
all  rational  being — was — nay,  do  not  threaten 
to  murder  us — not  seldom  an  imperfect  delinea- 
tor of  human  life.  All  the  world  believed  that 
Sir  Walter  had  not  only  exhausted  his  own  ge- 
nius in  his  poetry,  but  that  he  had  exhausted  all 
the  matter  of  Scottish  life — he  and  Burns  to- 
gether— and  that  no  more  ground  unturned-up 
lay  on  this  side  of  the  Tweed.  Perhaps  he 
thought  so  too  for  a  while — and  shared  in  the 
general  and  natural  delusion.  But  one  morn- 
ing before  breakfast  it  occurred  to  him,  that  in 
all  his  poetry  he  had  done  little  or  nothing — 
though  more  for  Scotland  than  any  other  of 
her  poets — except  the  Ploughman — and  that  it 
would  not  be  much  amiss  to  commence  aNew 
Century  of  Inventions.  Hence  the  Prose  Tales 
— Novels — and  Romances — fresh  floods  of  ligtit 
pouring  all  over  Scotland — and  occasionally 
illuminating  England,  France,  and  Germany, 
and  even  Palestine — whatever  land  had  been 
ennobled  by  Scottish  enterprise,  genius,  va- 
lour, and  virtue. 

Up  to  the  era  of  Sir  Waller,  living  people  had 
some  vague,  general,  indistinct  notions  about 
dead  people  mouldering  away  to  nothing  cen- 
turies ago,  in  regular  kirkyards  and  chance 
burial-places,  "'mang  muirs  and  mosses  many 
O,"  somewhere  or  other  in  that  difhcultly-dis- 
tinguished  and  very  debatable  district  called 
the  Borders.  All  at  once  he  touched  their 
tombs  with  a  divining  rod,  and  the  turf  streamed 
out  ghosts,  some  in  woodmen's  dresses — most 
in  warrior's  mail:  green  arches  leaped  forth 
with  yew-bows  and  quivers — and  giants  stalked 
shaking  spears.  The  gray  chronicler  smiled; 
and,  taking  up  his  pen,  wrote  in  lines  of  light 
the  annals  of  the  chivalrous  and  heroic  days  of 
auld  feudal  Scotland.  The  nation  then,  for 
the  first  time,  knew  the  character  of  its  ances- 
tors ;  for  those  were  not  spectres — not  they 
indeed — nor  phantoms  of  the  brain — but  gaunt 
flesh  and  blood,  or  glad  and  glorious; — base- 
born  cottage  churls  of  the  olden  time,  because 
Scottish,  became  familiar  to  the  love  of  the 
nation's  heart,  and  so  to  its  pride  did  the  high- 
born lineage  of  palace-kings.  The  worst  of 
Sir  Waller  is,  that  he  has  harried  all  Scotland. 
Never  was  there  such  a  freebooter.  He  hurries 
all  men's  cattle — kills  themselves  off"  hand,  and 
makes  bonfires  of  their  castles.  Thus  has  he 
disturbed  and  illuminated  all  the  land  as  with 
the  blazes  of  a  million  beacons.  Lakes  lie 
with  their  islands  distinct  by  midnight  as  by 
mid-day;  wide  woods  glow  gloriously  in  the 
gloom  ;  and  by  the  stormy  splendour  you  even 
see  ships,  with  all  sails  set,  far  at  sea.  His 
favourite  themes  in  prose  or  numerous  verse, 
are  still  "Knights  and  Lords  and  mighty  Earls," 


and  their  Lady-loves,  chiefly  Scottish — of  kings 
that  fought  for  fame  or  freedom — of  fatal  Flod- 
den  and  bright  Bannockburn — of  the  de- 
liverer. If  that  be  not  national  to  the  teeth, 
Homer  was  no  Ionian,  Tyrtceus  not  sprung 
from  Sparta,  and  Christopher  North  a  Cockney. 
Let  Abbolsford,  then,  be  cognomed  by  those 
that  choose  it,  the  Ariosto  of  the  North — we 
shall  continue  to  call  him  plain  Sir  Walter. 

Now,  we  beg  leave  to  decline  answering  our 
own  question — has  he  ever  written  a  Great 
Poem]  We  do  not  care  one  straw  whether  he 
has  or  not;  for  he  has  done  this — he  has  ex- 
hibited human  life  in  a  greater  variety  of  forms 
and  lights,  all  definite  and  distinct,  than  any 
other  man  whose  name  has  reached  our  ears; 
and  therefore,  without  fear  or  trembling,  we 
tell  the  world  to  its  face,  that  he  is,  out  of  all 
sight,  the  greatest  genius  of  the  age,  not  for- 
getting Goethe,  the  Devil,  and  Dr.  Faustus. 

"  What  ]  Scott  a  greater  genius  than  Byron  !" 
Yes — beyond  compare.  Byron  had  a  vivid  and 
strong,  but  not  a  wide,  imagination.  He  saw 
things  as  they  are,  occasionally  standing  pro- 
minently and  boldly  out  from  the  flat  surface 
of  this  world ;  and  in  general,  when  his  soul 
was  up,  he  described  them  with  a  master's 
might.  We  speak  now  of  the  external  world — 
of  nature  and  of  art.  Now  observe  how  he 
dealt  with  nature.  In  his  early  poems  he  be- 
trayed no  passionate  love  of  nature,  though  we 
do  not  doubt  that  he  felt  it;  and  even  in  the 
first  two  cantos  of  Childe  Harold  he  was  an 
unfrequent  and  no  very  devout  worshipper  at 
her  shrine.  We  are  not  blaming  his  lukewarm- 
ness;  but  simply  stating  a  fact.  He  had  some- 
thing else  to  think  of,  it  would  appear;  and 
proved  himself  a  poet.  But  in  the  third  canto, 
"a  change  came  over  the  spirit  of  his  dream," 
and  he  "babbled  o'  green  fields,"  floods,  and 
mountains.  Unfortunately,  however,  for  his 
originality,  that  canto  is  almost  a  cento — his 
model  being  Wordsworth.  His  merit,  what- 
ever it  may  be,  is  limited  therefore  to  that  of 
imitation.  And  observe,  the  imitation  is  not 
merely  occasional  or  verbal ;  but  all  the  de- 
scriptions are  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  Words- 
worth, coloured  by  it  and  shaped — from  it  they 
live,  and  breathe,  and  have  their  being;  and, 
that  so  entirely,  that  had  the  Excursion  and 
Lyrical  Ballads  never  been,  neither  had  any 
composition  at  all  resembling,  either  in  con- 
ception or  execution,  the  third  canto  of  Childe 
Harold.  His  soul,  however,  having  been 
awakened  by  the  inspiration  of  the  Bard  of 
Nature,  never  afterwards  fell  asleep,  nor  got 
drowsy  over  her  beauties  or  glories ;  and  much 
fine  description  pervades  most  of  his  subse- 
quent works.  He  afterwards  made  much  of 
what  he  saw  his  own — and  even  described  it 
after  his  own  fashion  ;  but  a  greater  in  that 
domain  was  his  instructor  and  guide — nor  in 
his  noblest  efforts  did  he  ever  make  any  close 
approach  to  those  inspired  passages,  which  he 
had  manifestly  set  as  models  before  his  imagi- 
nation. With  all  the  fair  and  great  objects  in 
the  world  of  art,  again,  Byron  dealt  like  a  poel 
of  original  genius.  They  themselves,  and  not 
descriptions  of  them,  kindled  it  up;  and  thus 
"thoughts  that  breathe,  and  words  that  burn," 
do  almost  entirely  compose  the  fourth  canfc 
o  2 


78 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


which  is  worth,  ten  times  over,  all  the  rest. 
The  impetuosity  of  his  career  is  astonishing; 
never  for  a  moment  does  his  wing  flag;  ever 
and  anon  he  stoops  but  to  soar  again  with  a 
more  majestic  sweep;  and  you  see  how  he  glo- 
ries in  his  flight — that  he  is  proud  as  Lucifer. 
The  first  two  cantos  are  frequently  cold,  cum- 
brous, stifle,  heavy,  and  dull ;  and,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  perhaps  a  dozen  stanzas,  and  these 
far  from  being  of  first-rate  excellence,  they  are 
found  wofully  wanting  in  the  true  fire.  Many 
passages  are  but  the  baldest  prose.  Byron, 
after  all,  was  right  in  thinking — at  first — but 
poorly  of  these  cantos ;  and  so  was  the  friend, 
not  Mr.  Hobhouse,  who  threw  cold  water  upon 
them  in  manuscript.  True,  they  "  made  a  pro- 
digious sensation,"  but  biiter-bad  stuff  has  often 
done  that;  while  often  unheeded  or  unheard 
has  been  an  angel's  voice.  Had  they  been  suf- 
fered to  stand  alone,  long  ere  now  had  they 
been  pretty  well  forgotten;  and  had  they  been 
followed  by  other  two  cantos  no  belter  than 
themselves,  then  had  the  whole  four  in  good 
time  been  most  certainly  damned.  Hut,  fortu- 
nately, the  poet,  in  his  pride,  felt  himself 
pledged  to  proceed;  and  proceed  he  did  in  a 
superior  style;  borrowing,  stealing,  and  rob- 
bing, with  a  face  of  aristocratic  assurance  that 
must  have  amazed  the  plundered;  but  inter- 
mingling with  the  spoil  riches  fairly  won  by 
his  own  genius  from  the  exhaustless  treasury 
of  nature,  who  loved  her  wayward,  her  wicked, 
and  her  wondrous  son.  Is  Childe  Harold,  then, 
a  Great  Poem?  What!  with  one  half  of  it 
little  above  mediocrity,  one  quarter  of  it  not 
original  in  conception,  and  in  execution  swarm- 
ing with  faults,  and  the  remainder  glorious? 
As  for  his  talcs — the  Giaour,  Corsair,  Lara, 
BrideofAbydos,Siegeof  Corinth, and  so  forth — 
they  are  all  spirited,  energetic,  and  passionate 
performances — sometimes  nobly  and  some- 
times meanly  versified — but  displaying  neither 
originality  nor  fertility  of  invention,  and  assu- 
redly no  wide  range  either  of  feeling  or  of 
thought,  though  over  that  range  a  supreme 
dominion.  Some  of  his  dramas  are  magnifi- 
cent— and  in  many  of  his  smaller  poems, 
pathos  and  beauty  overflow.  Don  Juan  exhi- 
bits almost  every  kind  of  talent;  and  in  it  the 
degradation  of  poetry  is  perfect. 

But  there  is  another  glory  belonging  to  this 
age,  and  almost  to  this  age  alone  of  our  poetry 
— the  glory  of  Female  Genius.  We  have  heard 
and  seen  it  seriously  argued  whether  or  not 
women  are  equal  to  men  ;  as  if  there  could  be 
a  moment's  doubt  in  any  mind  unbesottcd  by 
sex,  that  they  are  infinitely  superior;  not  iii 
understanding,  thank  Heaven,  nor  in  intellect, 
out  in  all  other  "impulses  of  soul  and  sense" 
that  dignify  and  ailorn  human  beings,  and 
make  them  worthy  of  living  on  this  delightful 
earth.  Men  for  the  most  part  are  such  worth- 
less wretches,  that  we  wonder  how  women 
condescended  to  allow  the  world  to  be  carried 
on;  and  we  attribute  that  phenomenon  solely 
to  the  hallowed  yearnings  of  maternal  afl"ec- 
tion,  which  breathes  as  strongly  in  maid  as  in 
matron,  and  may  be  beautifully  seen  in  the 
child  fondling  its  doll  in  its  blissful  bosom. 
Fbiloprogenitiveness  !  But  not  to  pursue  that 
interesting  speculation,  suflice  it  for  the  pre- 


sent to  say,  that  so  far  from  having  no  souls 
— a  whim  of  Mahomet's,  who  thought  but  of 
their  bodies — women  are  the  sole  spiritual 
beings  that  walk  the  earth  not  unseen;  they 
alone,  without  pursuing  a  complicated  and 
scientific  system  of  deception  and  hypocrisy, 
are  privileged  from  on  high  to  write  poetrj'. 
We — men  we  mean — may  affect  a  virtue, 
though  we  have  it  not,  and  appear  to  be  in- 
spired by  the  divine  afflatus.  Nay,  we  some- 
times— often — are  truly  so  inspired,  and  write 
like  Gods.  A  few  of  us  are  subject  to  fits,  and 
in  them  utter  oracles.  But  the  truth  is  too 
glaring  to  be  denied,  that  all  male  rational 
creatures  are  in  the  long  run  vile,  corrupt,  and 
polluled;  and  that  the  best  man  that  ever  died 
in  his  bed  within  the  arms  of  his  distracted 
wife,  is  wickeder  far  than  the  worst  woman 
that  was  ever  iniquilously  hanged  for  murder- 
ing what  was  called  her  poor  husband,  who  in 
all  cases  righteously  deserved  his  fate.  Purity 
of  mind  is  incompatible  with  manhood;  and  a 
monk  is  a  monster — so  is  every  Fellow  of  a 
College,  and  every  Roman  Catholic  Priest, 
from  Father  O'Li'ar)'  to  Dr.  Doyle.  Confes- 
sions, indeed  I  W^hy,  had  Joseph  himself  con- 
fessed all  he  ever  felt  and  thought  to  Poliphar's 
wife,  she  would  have  frowned  him  from  her 
presence  in  all  the  chaste  dignity  of  virtuous 
indignation,  and  so  far  from  tearing  ofl"  his 
garment,  would  not  have  touched  it  for  the 
whole  world.  But  all  women — fill  men  by 
marriage,  or  by  something,  if  that  be  possible, 
wnrse  even  than  marriage,  try  in  vain  to  re- 
duce them  nearly  to  their  own  level — are  pure 
as  dcwdrops  or  moonbeams,  and  know  not  the 
meaning  of  evil.  Their  genius  conjectures  it; 
and  in  that  there  is  no  sin.  But  their  genius 
loves  best  to  image  forth  good,  for  'tis  the 
blessing  of  their  life,  its  power,  and  its  glory ; 
and  hence,  when  they  write  poetry,  it  is  re- 
ligious, sweet,  soft,  solemn,  and  divine. 
•  Observe,  however — to  prevent  all  mistakes 
— that  we  speak  but  of  British  women — and 
of  British  women  of  the  present  age.  Of  the 
(Jerman  Fair  Sex  we  know  little  or  nothing; 
but  daresay  that  the  Baroness  la  Motic  Fouqu6 
is  a  worthy  woman,  and  as  vapid  as  the  Baron. 
Neither  make  we  any  allusion  to  Madame  Gen- 
lis,  or  other  illustrimis  Lemans  of  the  French 
school,  who  charitably  adopted  their  own  na- 
tural daughters,  while  other  less  pious  ladies, 
who  had  become  mothers  without  being  wives, 
sent  theirs  to  Foundling  Hospitals.  We  restrict 
ourselves  to  the  Maids  and  Matrons  of  this 
Island — and  of  this  Age  ;  and  as  it  is  of  poeti- 
cal genius  that  we  speak — we  name  the  names 
of  Joanna  Baillie,  Mary  Tighe,  Felicia  He- 
mans,  Caroline  Bowles,  Mary  Howitt,  Letitia 
Elizabeth  Landon,  and  the  Lovely  Norton ; 
while  we  pronounce  several  other  sweet-sound- 
ing Christian  surnames  in  whispering  under- 
tones of  aflection.  almost  as  inaudible  as  the 
sound  of  the  growing  of  grass  on  a  dewy 
evening. 

Corinna  and  Sapphomu;  t  have  been  women 
of  transcendant  genius  so  to  move  Greece. 
For  though  the  Greek  character  was  most  im- 
pressible and  combustible,  it  was  so  only  to 
the  finest  finger  and  fire.  In  that  delightful 
land  dunces  were  all  dumb.     W'here  genius 


AN  HOUR'S  TALK  ABOUT  POETRY 


79 


alone  spoke  and  suns:  poctr\%  how  hard  to  ex- 
cel !  Corinna  and  Sappho  did  excel — the  one, 
it  is  said,  conquering  Pindar — and  the  other 
all  the  world  but  Phaon. 

But  our  own  Joanna  has  been  visited  with 
a  still  loftier  inspiration.  She  has  created 
tragedies  which  Sophocles — or  Euripides — 
nay,  even  ^iSschj'lus  himself,  might  have  fear- 
ed, in  competition  for  the  crown.  She  is  our 
Tragic  Queen ;  but  she  belongs  to  all  places 
as  to  all  times;  and  Sir  Walter  truly  said — let 
Ihem  who  dare  deny  it — that  he  saw  her  Ge- 
nius in  a  sister  shape  sailing  by  the  side  of 
the  Swan  of  Avon.  Yet  Joanna  loves  to  pace 
the  pastoral  mead;  and  then  we  are  made  to 
think  of  the  tender  dawn,  the  clear  noon,  and 
the  bright  meridian  of  her  life,  past  among  the 
tail  cliffs  of  the  silver  Calder,  and  in  the  lone- 
some heart  of  the  dark  Strathaven  Muirs. 

Plays  on  the  Passions  !  "  How  absurd  !" 
said  one  philosophical  writer.  "This  will  ne- 
ver do.  It  has  done — perfectly.  What,  pray, 
is  the  aim  of  all  tragedy  ?  The  Stagyrite  has 
told  us — to  purify  the  passions  by  pity  and 
terror.  They  ventilate  and  cleanse  the  soul — 
till  its  atmosphere  is  like  that  of  a  calm,  bright 
summer  day.  All  plays,  therefore,  must  be  on 
the  Passions.  And  all  that  Joanna  intended — 
and  it  was  a  great  intention  greatly  effected — 
was  in  her  Series  of  Dramas  to  steady  her  pur- 
poses by  ever  keeping  one  great  end  in  view, 
of  which  the  perpetual  perception  could  not 
fail  to  make  all  the  means  harmonious,  and 
therefore  majestic.  One  passion  was,  there- 
lore,  constituted  sovereign  of  the  soul  in  each 
glorious  tragedy — sovereign  sometimes  by  di- 
vine right — sometimes  an  usurper — generally 
a  tyrant.  In  De  Monfort  we  behold  the  horrid 
reign  of  Hate.  But  in  his  sister — the  seraphic 
sway  of  Love.  Darkness  and  light  sometimes 
opposed  in  sublime  contrast — and  sometimes 
the  light  swallowing 'up  the  darkness — or 
"smoothing  its  raven  down  till  it  smiles." 
Finally,  all  is  black  as  night  and  the  grave — 
for  the  light,  unextinguished,  glides  away  into 
some  far-off  world  of  peace.  Count  Basil ! 
A  woman  only  could  have  imagined  that  divine 
drama.  How  different  the  love  Basil  feels  for 
Victoria  from  Anthony's  for  Cleopatra  !  Pure, 
deep,  high  as  the  heaven  and  the  sea.  Yet  on 
it  we  see  him  borne  away  to  shame,  destruc- 
tion, and  death.  It  is  indeed  his  ruling  pas- 
sion. But  up  to  the  day  he  first  saw  her  face 
his  ruling  passion  had  been  the  love  of  glory. 
And  the  hour  he  died  by  his  own  hand  was 
troubled  into  madness  by  many  passions;  for 
are  they  not  all  mysteriously  linked  together, 
sometimes  a  dreadful  brotherhood  ] 

Do  you  wonder  how  one  mind  can  have  such 
vivid  consciousness  of  the  feelings  of  another, 
while  their  characters  are  cast  in  such  dilTercnt 
moulds?  It  is,  indeed,  wonderful — but  the 
power  is  that  of  sympathy  and  genius.  The 
dramatic  poet,  whose  heart  breathes  love  to  all 
living  things,  and  whose  overflowing  tender- 
ness diffuses  itself  over  the  beauty  even  of 
unliving  nature,  may  yet  paint  with  his  cre- 
ative hand  the  steeled  heart  of  him  who  sits  on 
a  throne  of  blood — the  lust  of  crime  in  a  mind 
polluted  with  wickedness — the  remorse  of  acts 
which  could  never  pass  in  thought  through  his 


imagination  as  his  own.  For.  in  the  act  of 
imagination,  he  can  suppress  in  his  mind  its 
own  peculiar  feelings — its  good  and  gracious 
aflections — call  up  from  their  hidden  places 
those  elements  of  our  being,  of  which  the  seeds 
were  sown  in  him  as  in  all — give  them  unna- 
tural magnitude  and  power — conceive  the  dis- 
order of  passions,  the  perpetration  of  crimes, 
the  tortures  of  remorse,  or  the  scorn  of  that 
human  weakness,  from  which  his  own  gentle 
bosom  and  blameless  life  are  pure  and  free. 
He  can  bring  himself,  in  short,  into  an  imagi- 
nary and  momentary  sympathy  with  the  wick- 
ed, just  as  his  mind  falls  of  itself  into  a  natural 
and  true  sympathy  with  those  whose  character 
is  accordant  with  his  own;  and  watching  the 
emotions  and  workings  of  his  mind  in  the 
spontaneous  and  in  the  forced  sympathy,  he 
knows  and  understands  from  himself  what 
passes  in  the  minds  of  others.  What  is  done 
in  the  highest  degree  by  the  highest  genius,  is 
done  by  all  of  ourselves  in  lesser  degree,  and 
unconsciousl}',  at  every  moment,  in  our  inter- 
course with  one  another.  To  this  kind  of  sym- 
pathy, so  essential  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
human  mind,  and  without  which  there  can  be 
neither  poetry  nor  philosophy,  are  necessary  a 
largeness  of  heart  which  willingly  yields  itself 
to  conceive  the  feelings  and  states  of  others 
whose  character  is  utterly  unlike  its  own,  and 
freedom  from  any  inordinate  overpowering 
passion  which  quenches  in  the  mind  the  feel- 
ings of  nature  it  has  already  known,  and  places 
it  in  habitual  enmity  to  the  affections  and  hap- 
piness of  its  kind.  To  paint  bad  passions,  is 
not  to  praise  them :  they  alone  can  paint  them 
well  who  hate,  fear,  or  pity  them;  and  there- 
fore Baillie  has  done  so — nay  start  not — better 
than  Byron. 

Well  may  our  land  be  proud  of  such  women. 
None  such  ever  before  adorned  her  poetical 
annals.  Glance  over  that  most  interesting 
volume,  "Specimens  of  British  Poetesses,"  by 
that  amiable,  ingenious,  and  erudite  man,  the 
Reverend  Alexander  Dyce,  and  what  effulgence 
begins  to  break  towards  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century!  For  ages  on  ages  the 
genius  of  English  women  had  ever  and  anon 
been  shining  forth  in  song;  but  faint  though 
fair  was  the  lustre,  and  struggling  imprisonea 
in  clouds.  Some  of  the  sweet  singers  of  those 
days  bring  tears  to  our  eyes  by  their  simple 
pathos — for  their  poetry  breathes  of  their  own 
sorrows,  and  sho\ys  that  they  were  but  too  fa- 
miliar with  grief.  But  their  strains  arc  mere 
melodies  "sweetly  played  in  tune."  The 
deeper  harmonies  of  poetry  seem  to  have  been 
beyond  their  reach.  The  range  of  their  power 
was  limited.  Anne,  Countess  of  Winchelsea 
— Catherine  Phillips,  known  by  the  name  of 
Orinda— and  Mrs.  Anne  Killigrew,  who,  as 
Dryden  says,  was  made  an  angel,  "  in  the  last 
promotion  to  the  skies," — showed,  as  they  sang 
on  earth,  that  they  were  all  worthy  to  sing  in 
heaven.  But  what  were  their  hymns  to  those 
that  are  now  warbled  around  us  from  many 
sister  spirits,  pure  in  their  lives  as  they,  but 
brighter  far  in  their  genius,  and  more  fortunate 
in  Its  nurture.  Poetry  from  female  lips  was 
then  half  a  wonder  and  half  a  reproach.  But 
now  'tis  no  longer  rare— not  even  the  highest-- 


80 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


yes,  the  highest — for  Innocence  and  Purity  are 
of  the  highest  hierarchies;  and  the  thnughts 
and  feelings  they  inspire,  though  breathed  in 
■words  and  tones,  "gentle  and  low,  an  excellent 
thing  in  woman,"  are  yet  lofty  as  the  stars,  and 
humble  too  as  the  flowers  beneath  our  feet. 

We  have  not  forgotten  an  order  of  poets,  pe- 
culiar, we  believe,  to  our  own  enlightened  land 
— a  high  order  of  poets  sj)rung  from  the  lower 
orders  of  the  people — and  not  only  sprung 
from  them,  but  bred  as  well  as  born  in  "the 
huts  where  poor  men  lie,"  and  glorifying  their 
condition  by  the  light  of  sung.  Such  glory  be- 
longs— we  believe — exclusively  to  this  country 
and  to  this  age.  Mr.  Southey,  who  in  his  own 
high  genius  and  fame  is  never  insensible  to  the 
virtues  of  his  fellow-men,  however  humble 
and  obscure  the  sphere  in  which  they  may 
move,  has  sent  forth  a  volume — and  a  most 
interesting  one — on  the  uneducated  pdets;  nor 
shall  we  presume  to  gainsay  one  of  his  bene- 
volent words.  But  this  we  do  say,  that  all  the 
verse-writers  of  whom  he  there  treats,  and  all 
the  verse-writers  of  the  same  sort  uf  whom  he 
does  not  treat,  that  ever  existed  on  the  face  of 
the  earth,  shrink  up  into  a  lean  and  shrivelled 
bundle  of  leaves  or  sticks,  compared  with  these 
Five — Burns,  Hogg,  Cunningham,  Bloomfield, 
and  Clare.  It  must  be  a  strong  soil — the  soil 
of  this  Britain — which  sends  up  such  products  ; 
and  we  must  not  complain  of  the  clime  beneath 
which  they  grow  to  such  height,  and  bear  such 
fruitage.  The  spirit  of  domestic  life  mu^'t  be 
sound — the  natural  knowledge  of  good  and  evil 
high — the  religion  true — the  laws  just — and 
the  government,  on  the  whole,  good,  methinks, 
that  have  all  conspired  to  educate  thc^e  chil- 
dren of  genius,  whose  souls  Nature  had  framed 
of  the  finer  clay. 

Such  men  seem  to  us  more  clearly  and  cer- 
.ainly  men  of  genius,  than  many  who,  under 
different  circumstances,  may  have  effecied 
higher  achievements.  For  though  they  en- 
joyed in  their  condition  inelfable  blessings  to 
(^ilate  their  spirits,  and  touch  them  with  all 
tenderest  thoughts,  it  is  not  easy  to  imagine,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  deadening  or  degrading 
influences  to  which  by  that  condition  they 
were  inevitably  exposed,  and  which  keep  down 
the  heaven-aspiring  flame  of  genius,  or  ex- 
tinguish it  wholly,  or  hold  it  smouldering  under 
all  sorts  of  rubbish.  Only  look  at  the  attempts 
in  verse  of  the  common  run  of  clodhoppers. 
Buy  a  few  ballads  from  the  wall  or  stall — and 
you  groan  to  think  that  you  have  been  born — 
such  is  the  mess  of  mire  and  filth  which  often, 
without  the  slightest  intention  of  offence,  those 
rural,  city,  or  suburban  bards  of  the  lower 
orders  prepare  for  boys,  virgins,  and  matrons, 
who  all  devour  it  greedily,  without  suspicion. 
Strange  it  is  that  even  in  that  mural  minstrelsy, 
occasionally  occurs  a  phrase  or  line,  and  even 
stanza,  sweet  and  simple,  and  to  nature  true; 
but  consider  it  in  the  light  of  poetry  read,  re- 
cited, and  sung  by  the  people,  and  you  might 
well  be  appalled  by  the  revelation  tlierein 
made  of  the  tastes,  feelings,  and  thoughts  of 
the  lower  orders.  And  yet  in  the  midst  of  all 
the  popularity  of  such  productions,  the  best  of 
Burns'  poems,  his  Cottar's  Saturday  Night,  and 
most  delicate  of  his  songs,  are  still  more  popu- 


lar, and  read  by  the  same  classes  with  a  still 
greater  eagerness  of  delight.  Into  this  mystery 
we  shall  not  now  inquire;  but  we  mention  it 
now  merely  to  show  how  divine  a  thing  true 
genius  is,  which,  burning  within  the  bosoms 
of  a  few  favourite  sons  of  nature,  guards  them 
from  all  such  pollution,  lifts  them  up  above  it 
all,  purifies  their  whole  being,  and  without 
consuming  their  family  affections  or  friend- 
ships, or  making  them  unhappy  with  their  lot, 
and  disgusted  with  all  about  them,  reveals  to 
them  all  that  is  fair  and  bright  and  beautiful  in 
feeling  and  in  imagination,  makes  them  very 
poets  indeed,  and  should  fortune  favour,  and 
chance  and  accident,  gains  for  them  wide  over 
the  world,  the  glory  of  a  poet's  name. 

From  all  such  evil  influences  incident  to 
their  condition — and  we  are  now  speaking  but 
of  the  evil — The  Five  emerged;  and  first  and 
foremost — Burns.  Our  dearly  beloved  Thomas 
Carlyle  is  reported  to  have  said  at  a  dinner 
given  to  Allan  Cunningham  in  Dumfries,  that 
Burns  was  not  only  one  of  the  greatest  of 
poets,  but  likewise  of  philosophers.  We  hope 
not.  What  he  did  may  be  told  in  one  short 
sentence.  His  genius  purified  and  ennobled 
in  his  imagination  and  in  his  heart  the  cha- 
racter and  condition  of  the  Scottish  peasantry 
— and  reflected  them,  ideally  true  to  nature,  in 
the  living  waters  of  Song.  That  is  what  he 
did  ;  bnt  to  do  that,  did  not  require  the  highest 
powers  of  the  poet  and  the  philosopher.  Nay, 
had  he  marvellously  possessed  ihem,  he  never 
would  have  written  a  single  line  of  the  poetry 
of  the  late  Robert  Burns.  Thank  Heaven  for 
not  having  made  him  such  a  man — but  merely 
the  .Ayrshire  Ploughman.  He  was  called  into 
existence  for  a  certain  work,  for  the  fulness  of 
time  was  come — but  he  was  neither  a  iShak- 
speare,  nor  a  sScott,  nor  a  Goethe ;  and  therefore 
he  rejoiced  in  writing  tlje  Saturday  Night,  and 
the  Twa  Dogs,  and  the  Holy  Fair,  and  O'  a' 
the  Airis  the  Win'  can  blaw,  and  eke  the 
Vision.  But  forbid  it,  all  ye  (Jracious  Powers! 
that  we  should  quarrel  with  Thomas  Carlyle — 
and  that,  too,  for  calling  Robert  Burns  one  of 
the  greatest  poets  and  philosophers. 

Like  a  strong  man  rejoicing  to  run  a  race, 
we  behold  Burns  in  his  golden  prime;  and 
glory  gleams  from  the  Peasant's  head,  far  and 
wide  over  Scotland.  See  the  shadow  loitering 
to  the  iomb  I  frenzied  with  fears  of  a  prison — 
for  some  five  pound  debt^-existing,  perhaps, 
but  in  his  diseased  imagination — for,  alas ! 
sorely  diseased  it  was,  and  he  too,  at  last, 
seemed  somewhat  insane.  He  esca])es  that 
disgrace  in  the  grave.  Buried  with  his  bones 
be  all  remembrances  of  his  miseries  !  But  the 
spirit  of  song,  which  was  his  true  spirit,  un- 
polluted and  unfallen,  lives,  and  breathes,  and 
has  its  being,  in  the  peasant-life  of  Scotland; 
his  songs,  which  are  as  household  and  sheep- 
fold  words,  consecrated  by  the  charm  that  is 
in  all  the  heart's  purest  affectiims,  love  and 
pity,  and  the  joy  of  grief,  shall  never  decay,  till 
among  the  people  have  decayed  the  virtues 
which  they  celebrate,  and  by  which  they  were 
inspired;  and  should  some  dismal  change  in 
the  skies  ever  overshadow  the  sunshine  of  our 
national  character,  and  savage  storms  end  in 
sullen  stilluciis,  which  is  moral  death,  in  (be 


AN  HOUR'S  TALK  ABOUT  POETRY. 


81 


poetry  of  Burns  the  natives  of  happier  lands 
will  see  how  noble  was  once  the  degenerated 
race  that  may  then  be  looking  down  disconso- 
lately on  the  dim  grass  of  Scotland  with  the 
unuplified  eyes  of  cowards  and  slaves. 

The  truth  ought  always  to  be  spoken  ;  and 
therefore  we  say  that  in  fancy  James  Hogg — 
in  spite  of  his  name  and  his  teeth — was  not 
inferior  to  Robert  Burns — and  why  not  1  The 
Forest  is  a  better  school-room  for  Fancy  than 
ever  Burns  studied  in ;  it  overflowed  with 
poetical  traditions.  But  comparisons  are 
always  odious;  and  the  great  glory  of  James 
is,  that  he  is  as  unlike  Robert  as  ever  one  poet 
was  unlike  another. 

Among  hills  that  once  were  a  forest,  and 
still  bear  that  name,  and  by  the  side  of  a  river 
not  unknown  in  song,  lying  in  his  plaid  on  a 
brae  among  the  "woolly  people,"  behold  that 
true  son  of  genius — "The  Ettrick  Shepherd." 
We  are  never  so  happy  as  when  praising 
James;  but  pastoral  poets  are  the  most  incom- 
prehensible of  God's  creatures;  and  here  is 
one  of  the  best  of  them  all,  who  confesses  the 
Chaldec  and  denies  the  JVoctes  ! 

The  Queen's  Wake  is  a  garland  of  fair 
forest  flowers,  bound  with  a  band  of  rushes 
from  the  moor.  It  is  not  a  poem — not  it — nor 
was  it  intended  to  be  so;  you  mii;ht  as  well 
call  a  bright  bouquet  of  flowers  a  flower,  which, 
by  the  by,  we  do  in  Scotland.  Some  of  the 
ballads  are  very  beautiful ;  one  or  two  even 
splendid;  most  of  them  spirited;  and  the  worst 
far  better  than  the  best  that  ever  was  written 
by  any  bard  in  danger  of  being  a  blockhead. 
"Kilmeny"  alone  jilaces  our  (ay, oi(r)  Shepherd 
among  the  Un<lying  Ones.  London  soon  loses 
all  memory  of  lions,  let  them  visit  her  in  the 
shape  of  any  animal  they  please.  But  the 
Heart  of  the  Forest  never  forgets.  It  knows 
no  such  word  as  absence.  The  Death  of  a 
Poet  there,  is  but  the  beginning  of  a  Life  of 
Fame.  His  songs  no  more  perish  than  do 
flowers.  There  are  no  Annuals  in  the  Forest. 
All  are  perennial;  or  if  they  do  indeed  die, 
their  fadings  away  are  invisible  in  the  constant 
succession — the  sweet  unbroken  series  of  ever- 
lasting bloom.  So  will  it  be  in  his  native 
haunts  with  the  many  songs  of  the  Ettrick 
Shepherd.  The  lochs  may  be  drained — corn 
may  grow  where  once  the  i'arrow  flowed — nor 
is  such  change  much  more  unlikely  than  in 
the  olden  time  would  have  been  thought  the 
extirpation  of  all  the  vast  oak-woods,  where 
the  deer  trembled  to  fall  into  the  den  of  the 
wolf,  and  the  wild  boar  harrowed  beneath  the 
,  eagle's  eyrie.  .All  extinct  now  !  But  obsolete 
never  shall  be  the  Shepherd's  plaintive  or 
pawky,  his  melancholy  or  merry,  lays.  The 
ghost  of  "Mary  Lee"  will  be  seen  in  the  moon- 
light coming  down  the  hills;  the  "Witch  of 
Fife"  on  the  clouds  will  still  bestride  her 
besom;  and  the  "Gude  Grey  Cat"  will  mew 
in  imagination,  were  even  the  last  mouse  on 
his  last  legs,  and  the  feline  species  swept  off" 
by  war,  pestilence,  and  famine,  and  heard  to 
pur  no  more! 

It  is  here  where  Burns  was  weakest,  that  the 

Shepherd  is  strongest — the  world  of  shadows. 

The  airy  beings  that  to  the  impassioned  soul 

of  Burns  seemed  cold,  bloodless,  unattractive, 

11 


rise  up  lovely  in  their  own  silent  domains, 
before  the  dreaming  fancy  of  the  tender-hearted 
Shepherd.  The  still  green  beauty  of  the  pas- 
toral hills  and  vales  where  he  passed  all  his 
days,  inspired  him  with  ever-brooding  visions 
of  Fairy  Land,  till,  as  he  lay  musing  on  the 
brae,  the  world  of  shadows  seemed,  in  the  clear 
depths,  a  softened  reflection  of  real  life,  like 
the  hills  and  heavens  in  the  water  of  his  native 
lake.  When  he  speaks  of  Fairy  Land,  his 
language  becomes  aerial  as  the  very  voice  of 
the  fairy  people,  serenest  images  rise  up  with 
the  music  of  the  verse,  and  we  almost  believe 
in  the  being  of  those  unlocalized  realms  of 
peace,  and  of  which  he  sings  like  a  native 
minstrel. 

Yes,  James — thou  werl  but  a  poor  shepherd 
to  the  last — poor  in  this  world's  goods — though 
Alirive  Lake  is  a  pretty  little  bit  farmie — given 
thee  by  the  best  of  Dukes — with  its  few  laigh 
sheep-braes — its  somewhat  stony  hayfield  or 
two — its  pasture  where  Crummie  might  un- 
hungered  graze  —  nyeuck  for  the  potato's 
bloomy  or  ploomy  shaws — and  path-divided 
from  the  porch — the  garden,  among  whose 
flowers  "  wee  Jamie"  played.  But  nature  had 
given  thee,  to  console  thy  heart  in  all  disap- 
pointments from  the  ".false  smiling  of  fortune 
beguiling,"  a  boon  which  thou  didst  hug  to  thy 
heart  with  transport  on  the  darkest  day — the 
"  gift  o'  genie,"  and  the  power  of  immortal 
song. 

And  has  Scotland  to  the  Ettrick  Shepherd 
been  just — been  generous — as  she  was — or 
was  not — to  the  Ayrshire  peasant! — has  shC; 
in  her  conduct  to  him,  shown  her  contrition 
for  her  sin — whatever  that  may  have  been — to 
Burns  1  It  is  hard  to  tell.  Fashion  tosses  the 
feathered  head— and  gentility  turns  away  her 
painted  cheek  from  the  Mountain  Bard;  but 
when,  at  the  shrine  of  true  poetry,  did  ever 
such  votaries  devoutly  worship  1  Cold,  false, 
and  hollow,  ever  has  been  their  admiration  of 
genius — and  diflerent,  indeed,  from  their  evan- 
escent ejaculations,  has  ever  been  the  enduring 
voice  of  fame.  Scorn  be  to  the  scorners  !  But 
Scott,  and  Wordsworth,  and  Southey  and 
Byron,  and  the  other  great  bards,  have  all 
loved  the  Shepherd's  lays — and  Joanna  the 
palm-crowned,  and  Felicia  the  muse's  darling, 
and  Caroline  the  Christian  poetess,  and  all  the 
other  fair  female  spirits  of  song.  And  in  hij 
native  land,  all  hearts  that  love  her  streams, 
and  her  hills,  and  her  cottages,  and  her  kirks, 
the  bee-humming  garden  and  the  primrose- 
ciroled  fold,  the  white  hawthorn  and  the  green 
fairy-knowe,  all  delight  in  Kilmeny  and  Mary 
Lee,  and  in  many  another  vision  that  visited 
the  Shepherd  in  the  Forest. 

And  what  can  surpass  many  of  the  Shep- 
herd's songs  1  The  most  undefinable  of  all 
undefinable  kinds  of  poetical  inspiration  are 

surely Songs.     They  seem  to  start  up  indeed 

from  the  dew-sprinkled  soil  of  a  poet's  soul, 
like  flowers;  the  first  stanza  being  root,  the 
second  leaf,  the  third  bud,  and  all  the  rest 
blossom,  till  the  song  is  like  a  stalk  laden  with 
its  own  beauty,  and  laying  itself  down  in 
languid  de'  ^nt  on  the  soft  bed  of  moss— song 
and  flow  r  alike  having  the  same  "dying 
fall!" 


82 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


A  fragment!  And  the  more  piteous  because  j 
a  fragment.  Go  in  search  of  the  pathetic,  and  ' 
you  will  find  it  tear-steeped,  sigh-breathed, 
moan-muttered,  and  groaned  in  fragments. ' 
The  poet  seems  often  struck  dumb  by  wo— 
his  heart  feels  that  suflering  is  at  its  acme— 
and  that  he  should  break  off  and  away  from  a 
sight  too  sad  to  be  longer  looked  on— haply 
too  humiliating  to  be  disclosed.  So,  too,  it 
sometimes  is  with  the  beautiful.  The  soul  in 
its  delight  seeks  to  escape  from  the  emotion 
that  oppresses  it— is  speechless— and  the  song 
falls  mute.  Such  is  frequently  the  character 
—and  the  origin  of  that  character— of  our  auld 
Scottish  Sangs.  In  their  mournfulness  are 
they  not  almost  like  the  wail  of  some  bird  dis- 
tracted on  the  bush  from  which  its  nest  has 
been  harried,  and  then  suddenly  flying  away 
for  ever  into  the  woods'?  In  their  joyfulness, 
are  they  not  almost  like  the  hymn  of  some 
bird,  that  love-stricken  suddenly  darts  from  the 
tree-top  down  to  the  caresses  that  flutter  through 
the  spring?  And  such,  too,  are  often  the  airs 
to  which  those  dear  auld  sangs  are  sung. 
From  excess  of  feeling — fragmentary;  or  of 
one  divine  part  to  which  genius  may  be  defied 
to  conceive  another,  because  but  one  hour  in 
all  time  could  have  given  it  birth. 

You  may  call  this  pure  nonsense — but  'tis  so 
pure  that  you  need  not  fear  to  swallow  it.  All 
great  song-writers,  nevertheless,  have  been 
great  thieves.  Those  who  had  the  blessed  fate 
to  flourish  first — to  be  burn  when  "this  auld 
cloak  was  new," — the  cloak  we  mean  which 
nature  wears — scrupled  not  to  creep  upon  her 
as  she  lay  asleep  beneath  the  shadow  of  some 
single  tree  among 

"The  pracp  of  forest -woods  decay'd, 
And  pastoral  mclaiulioly," 

and  to  steal  the  very  pearls  out  of  her  hair — 
out  of  the  silken  snood  which  enamoured  Pan 
himself  had  not  untied  in  the  Golden  Age.  Or 
if  she  ventured,  as  sometimes  she  did,  to  walk- 
along  the  highways  of  the  earth,  they  robbed 
her  in  the  face  of  day  of  her  dew-wrought  reti- 
cule— without  hurting,  however,  the  hand  from 
which  they  brushed  that  net  of  gossamer. 

Then  came  the  Silver  Age  of  Song,  the  age 
in  which  we  now  live — and  the  song-singers 
were  thieves  still — stealing  and  robbing  from 
them  who  had  stolen  and  robbed  of  old; 
yet,  how  account  you  for  this  phenomenon — 
all  parties  remain  richer  than  ever — and  Na- 
ture, especially,  after  all  this  thieving  and 
robbery,  and  piracy  and  plunder,  many  mil- 
lion times  richer  than  the  day  on  which  she 
received  her  dowry, 

"The  bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky  ;" 

and  with  "  golden  store''  suflicient  in  its  scat- 
terings to  enable  all  the  sons  of  genius  she 
will  ever  bear,  to  "set  up  for  themselves"  in 
poetry,  accumulating  capital  upon  capital,  till 
each  is  a  Croesus,  rejoicing  to  lend  it  out  with- 
out any  other  interest  than  cent  per  cent,  paid  in 
sighs,  smiles,  and  tears,  and  without  any  other 
security  than  the  promise  of  a  quiet  eye, 

"That  broods  and  sleeps  on  its  own  heart !" 

Amongst  the  most  famous  thieves  in  our  time 
l)are  been  Rob,  James,  and  Allan.  Burns  never 


saw  or  heard  a  jewel  or  a  tune  of  a  thought  or 
a  feeling,  but  he  immediately  made  it  his  own 
— that  is,  stole  it.  He  was  too  honest  a  man 
to  refrain  from  such  thefts.  The  thoughts  and 
feelings — to  whom  by  divine  right  did  they  be- 
long! To  Nature.  But  Burns  beheld  them 
"  waif  and  stray,"  and  in  peril  of  being  lost  for 
ever.  He  seized  then  on  those  "  snatches  of 
old  songs,"  wavering  away  into  the  same  ob- 
livion that  lies  on  the  graves  of  the  nameless 
bards  who  first  gave  them  being;  and  now, 
spiritually  interfused  with  his  own  lays,  they 
are  secured  against  decay — and  like  them  im- 
mortal. So  hath  the  Shepherd  stolen  many 
of  the  Flowers  of  the  Forest — whose  beauty 
had  breathed  there  ever  since  Flodden's  fatal 
overthrow  ;  but  they  had  been  long  fading  and 
pining  away  in  the  solitary  places,  wherein  so 
many  of  their  kindred  had  utterly  disappeared, 
and  beneath  the  restoring  light  of  his  genius 
their  bloom  and  their  balm  were  for  ever  re- 
newed. But  the  thief  of  all  thieves  is  the  Niths- 
dale  and  Galloway  thief — called  by  Sir  Walter 
most  characteristically, "Honest  Allan  !"  Thief 
and  forger  as  he  is — we  often  wonder  why  he 
is  permitted  to  live.  Many  is  the  sweet  stanza 
he  has  stolen  from  Time  —  that  silly  old 
carle  who  kens  not  even  his  own — many  the 
lifelike  line — and  many  the  strange  single  word 
that  seems  to  possess  the  power  of  all  the  parts 
of  speech.  And,  having  stolen  them,  to  what  use 
did  he  turn  the  treasures?  Why,  unable  to 
give  back  every  man  his  own — for  they  were 
all  dead,  buried,  and  forgotten — by  a  potent 
prayer  he  evoked  from  his  Pool-Palace,  over- 
shadowed by  the  Dalswinton  woods,  the  Genius 
of  the  Nith,  to  preserve  the  gathered  flowers 
of  song  for  ever  unwitheretl,  for  that  they  all 
had  grown  ages  ago  beneath  and  around  the 
green  shadows  of  Criffel,  and  longed  now  to  be 
embalmed  in  the  purity  of  the  purest  river  that 
Scotland  sees  flowing  in  unsullied  silver  to  the 
sea.  But  the  Genius  of  the  Nith — frowning  and 
smiling — as  he  looked  upon  his  son  alternately 
in  anger,  love,  and  pride — refused  the  votive 
offering,  and  told  him  to  be  gone  ;  for  that  he — 
the  Genius — was  not  a  Cromek — and  could 
distinguish  with  half  an  eye  what  belonged  to 
antiquity,  from  what  had  undergone,  in  Allan's 
hands,  change  into  "  something  rich  and  rare  ;" 
and  above  all,  from  what  had  been  blown  to 
life  that  very  year  by  the  breath  of  Allan's  own 
genius,  love-inspired  by  "his  ain  lassie,"  the 
"  lass  that  he  loe'd  best,"  springing  from  seeds 
itself  had  sown,  and  cherished  by  the  dews  of 
the  same  gracious  skies,  that  filled  with  motion 
and  music  the  transparency  of  the  river  god's 
never-failing  urn. 

We  love  Allan's  "  Maid  of  Elvar."  It  beats 
with  a  fine,  free,  bold,  and  healthful  spirit. 
Along  with  the  growth  of  the  mutual  love  of 
Eustace  and  Sybil,  he  paints  peasant-life  with 
a  pen  that  reminds  us  of  the  pencil  of  Wilkie. 
He  is  as  familiar  with  it  all  as  Burns;  and 
Burns  would  have  pertised  with  tears  many 
of  these  pictures,  even  the  most  cheerful — for 
the  flood-gates  of  Robin's  heart  often  suddenly 
flung  themselves  open  to  a  touch,  while  a  rush- 
ing gush — wondering  gazers  knew  not  why — 
bediinined  the  lustre  of  his  large  black  eyes. 
Allan  gives  us  descriptions  of  Washin;?s  and 


AN  HOUR'S  TALK  ABOUT  POETRY. 


83 


Watchings  o'  claes,  as  Homer  has  done  before 
him  in  the  Odyssey,  and  that  other  Allan  in 
the  Gentle  Shepherd — of  Kirks,  and  Christen- 
ings, and  Hallowe'ens,  and  other  Festivals. 
Nor  has  he  feared  to  string  his  lyre — why 
should  he? — to  such  themes  as  the  Cottar's 
Saturday  Night — and  the  simple  ritual  of  our 
faith,  sung  and  said 

"In  some  small  kirk  upon  the  sunny  brae, 
That  stands  all  by  itself  on  some  sweet  Sabbath-day." 

Ay,  many  are  the  merits  of  this  "  Rustic 
Tale."  To  appreciate  them  properly,  we  must 
carry  along  with  us,  during  the  perusal  of  the 
poem,  a  right  understanding  and  feeling  of  that 
pleasant  epithet — Rustic.  Rusticity  and  Ur- 
banity are  polar  opposites — and  there  lie  be- 
tween many  million  modes  of  Manners,  which 
you  know  are  Minor  Morals.  But  not  to  puz- 
zle a  subject  in  itself  sulficiently  simple,  the 
same  person  may  be  at  once  rustic  and  urbane, 
and  that  too,  either  in  his  character  of  man  or 
of  poet,  or  in  his  twofold  capacity  of  both;  for 
observe  that  though  you  may  be  a  man  without 
being  a  poet,  we  defy  you  to  be  a  poet  without 
being  a  man.  A  Rustic  is  a  clodhopper  ;  an  Ur- 
bane is  a  paviour.  But  it  is  obvious  that  the  pa- 
vionr  in  a  field  hops  the  clod  ;  that  the  clodhopper 
in  a  street  paces  the  pavee.  At  the  same  time, 
it  is  equally  obvious  that  the  paviour,  in  hop- 
ping the  clod,  performs  the  feat  with  a  sort  of 
city  smoke,  which  breathes  of  bricks  ;  that  the 
clodhopper,  in  pacing  the  pavee,  overcomes  the 
difficulty  with  a  kind  of  country  air,  that  is 
redolent  of  broom.  Probably,  too,  Urbanus 
through  a  deep  fallow  is  seen  ploughing  his 
way  in  pumps  ;  Rusticus  along  the  shallow 
stones  is  heard  clattering  on  clogs.  But  to 
cease  pursuing  the  subject  through  all  its  vari- 
ations, suffice  it  for  the  present  (for  we  per- 
ceive that  we  must  resume  the  discussion 
another  time)  to  say,  that  Allan  Cunningham 
is  a  living  example  and  lively  proof  of  the  truth 
of  our  Philosophy — it  being  universally  al- 
lowed in  the  best  circles  of  town  and  country, 
that  he  is  an  UunAxr.  Rustic. 

Now,  that  is  the  man  for  our  love  and  mo- 
ney, when  the  work  to  be  done  is  a  Poem  on 
Scottish  Life. 

We  can  say  of  Allan  what  Allan  says  of 
Eustace : 

— *-"far  from  the  pasture  moor 

He  ronips  ;  the  fracrance  of  the  dale  and  wood 

Is  scenting  all  his  garments,  green  and  good." 

The  rural  imagery  is  fresh  and  fair;  not 
copied  Cockney-wise,  from  pictures  in  oil 
or  water-colours — from  mezzotinloes  or  line- 
engravings — but  from  the  free  open  face  of 
day,  or  the  dim  retiring  face  of  eve,  or  the 
face,  "  black  but  comely,"  of  night — by  sun- 
light or  moonlight,  ever  Nature.  Sometimes 
he  gives  us — Studies.  Small,  sweet,  sunny 
spots  of  still  or  dancing  day — stream-gleam-^ 
grove-glow — sky-glympse — or  cottage-roof,  in 
the  deep  dell  sending  up  its  smoke  to  the  high 
heavens.  But  usually  Allan  paints  with  a 
sweeping  pencil.  He  lays  down  his  land- 
scapes, stretching  wide  and  far,  and  fills  them 
with  woods  and  rivers,  hills  and  mountains, 
flocks  of  sheep  and  herds  of  cattle;  and  of  all 
sights  in  life  and  nature,  none  so  dear  to  his 


eyes  as  the  golden  grain,  ebbing  like  tide  of 
sea  before  a  close  long  line  of  glancing  sickles 
— no  sound  so  sweet  as,  rising  up  into  the 
pure  harvest-air,  frost-touched  though  sunny 
— beneath  the  shade  of  hedge-row-tree,  after 
their  mid-day  meal,  the  song  of  the  jolly  reap- 
ers. But  are  not  his  pictures  sometimes  too 
crowded  1  No.  For  there  lies  the  power  of 
the  pen  over  the  pencil.  The  pencil  can  do 
much,  the  pen  every  thing;  the  Painter  is  im- 
prisoned within  a  few  feet  of  canvas,  the 
Poet  commands  the  horizon  with  an  eye  that 
circumnavigates  the  globe  ;  even  that  glorious 
pageant,  a  painted  Panorama,  is  circumscribed 
by  bounds,  over  which  imagination,  feeling 
them  all  too  narrow,  is  uneasy  till  she  soars; 
but  the  Poet's  Panorama  is  commensurate 
with  the  soul's  desires,  and  may  include  the 
Universe. 

This  Poem  reads  as  if  it  had  been  written 
during  the  "dewy  hour  of  prime."  Allan  must 
be  an  early  riser.  But,  if  not  so  now,  some 
forty  years  ago  he  was  up  every  morning  with 
the  lark, 

"  Walking  to  labour  by  that  cheerful  song," 

away  up  the  Nith,  through  the  Dalswinton 
woods ;  or,  for  any  thing  we  know  to  the 
contrary,  intersecting  with  stone-walls,  that 
wanted  not  their  scientific  coping,  the  green 
pastures  of  Sanquhar.  Now  he  is  familiar 
with  Chantry's  form-full  statues;  then,  with 
the  shapeless  cairn  on  the  moor,  the  rude 
headstone  on  the  martyr's  grave.  And  thus 
it  is  that  the  present  has  given  him  power 
over  the  past — that  a  certain  grace  and  deli- 
cacy, inspired  by  the  pursuits  of  his  prime, 
blend  with  the  creative  dreams  that  are  peo- 
pled with  the  lights  and  shadows  of  his  youth 
— that  the  spirit  of  the  old  ballad  breathes  still 
in  its  strong  simplicity  through  the  composi- 
tion of  his  "  New  Poem" — and  that  art  is  seen 
harmoniously  blending  there  with  nature. 

We  have  said  already  that  we  delight  in  the 
story ;  for  it  belongs  to  an  "  order  of  fables 
gray,"  which  has  been  ever  dear  to  Poets. 
Poets  have  ever  loved  to  bring  into  the  plea- 
sant places  and  paths  of  lowly  life,  persons 
(we  eschew  all  manner  of  personages  and  heroes 
and  heroines,  especially  with  the  epithet  "  our" 
prefixed)  whose  native  lot  lay  in  a  higher 
sphere :  For  they  felt  that  by  such  contrast, 
natural  though  rare,  a  beautiful  light  was  mu- 
tually reflected  from  each  condition,  and  that 
sacred  revelations  were  thereby  made  of  hu- 
man character,  of  which  all  that  is  pure  and 
profound  appertains  equally  to  all  estates  of 
this  our  mortal  being,  provided  only  that  hap- 
piness knows  from  whom  it  comes,  and  that 
misery  and  misfortune  are  alleviated  by  reli- 
gion. Thus  Electra  appears  before  us  at  her 
father's  Tomb,  the  virgin-wife  of  the  peasant 
Auturgus,  who  reverently  abstains  from  the 
intact  body  of  the  daughter  of  the  king.  Look 
into  Shakspeare.  Rosalind  was  not  so  love- 
able  at  court  as  in  the  woods.  Her  beauty 
might  have  been  more  brilliant,  and  her  con- 
versation too,  among  lords  and  ladies ;  but 
more  touching  both,  because  irue  to  tenderer 
nature,  when  we  see  and  hear  her  in  dialogue 
with  the  neat-herdess— Rosalind  &ni  Audrey  I 


84 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


And  trickles  not  the  tear  down  thy  cheek,  fair 
reader — burns  not  the  heart  within  thee,  when 
thou  thinkest  of  Florizel  and  Perdita  on  the 
Farm  in  the  Forest? 

Nor  from  those  visions  need  we  fear  to  turn 
to  Sybil  Lesley.  We  see  her  in  Elvar  Tower, 
a  high-born  Lady — in  Dalgonar  Glen,  an  hum- 
ble bondmaid.  The  change  might  have  been 
the  reverse — as  with  the  lassie  beloved  by 
the  Gentle  Shepherd.  Both  are  best.  The 
bust  that  gloriously  set  off  the  burnishing  of 
the  rounded  silk,  not  less  divinely  shrouded 
its  enchantment  beneath  the  swelling  russet. 
Graceful  in  bower  or  hall  were  those  arms, 
and  delicate  those  fingers,  Avhen  moving  while 
along  the  rich  embroidery,  or  across  the  strings 
of  the  sculptured  harp;  nor  less  so  when  be- 
fore the  cottage  door  they  woke  the  homely 
music  of  the  humming  wheel,  or  when  on  the 
brae  beside  the  Pool,  they  playfully  intertwined 
their  softness  with  the  new-washed  fleeces,  or 
when  among  the  laughing  lasses  at  the  Linn, 
not  loath  were  they  to  lay  out  the  coarse  linen 
in  the  bleaching  sunshine,  conspicuous  She 
the  while  among  the  rustic  beauties,  as  was 
Nausicaa  of  old  among  her  nymphs  at  the 
Fountain. 

We  are  in  love  with  Sybil  Lesley.  She  is 
full  of  s'pmik:  That  is  not  a  vulgar  word ;  or 
if  it  have  been  so  heretofore,  henceforth  let  it 
cease  to  be  so,  and  be  held  synonymous  wiih 
spirit.  She  shows  it  in  her  defiance  of  Sir 
Ralph  on  the  shore  of  Solway — in  her  flight 
from  the  Tower  of  Elvar;  and  tlie  character 
she  displays  then  and  there,  prepares  us  for 
the  part  she  plays  in  the  peasant's  cot  in  the 
glen  of  Dalgonar.  We  are  not  surprised  to 
see  her  take  so  kindly  to  the  duties  of  a  rustic 
service;  for  we  call  to  mind  how  she  sat 
among  the  humble  good-folks  in  the  hall,  when 
Thrift  and  Waste  figured  in  that  rude  but 
wise  Morality,  and  how  the  gracious  lady 
showed  she  sympathized  with  the  cares  and 
contentments  of  lowly  life. 

England  has  singled  out  John  Clare  from 
among  her  humble  sons,  (Ebenezer  Elliot  be- 
longs altogether  to  another  order)— as  the 
most  conspicuous  for  poetical  genius,  next  to 
Robert  Bloomfield.  That  is  a  proud  distinc- 
tion— whatever  critics  may  choose  to  say ;  and 
we  cordially  sympathize  with  the  beautiful  ex- 
pression of  his  gratitude  to  the  Rural  Muse, 
when  he  says — 

"JAke  as  tlie  little  larit  from  off  its  nost, 
Beside  the  mossy  liill,  awakes  in  clee. 
To  seek  ttie  morniiis's  tlirone,  a  merry  guest- 
So  do  I  sefk  thy  shrine,  if  tliat  inav  he.  ^ 
To  win  by  new  attempts  anotlier  smile  from  thee." 

Now,  England  is  out  of  all  sight  the  jnosi 
beautiful  country  in  the  whole  world— Scotland 
alone  excepted— and,  thank  heaven,  they  two 
are  one  kingdom— divided  by  no  line  either 
real  or  imaginar}-— united  by  the  Tweed.     We 

forget  at  this  moment— if  ever  we  knew  it 

the  precise  number  of  her  counties;  but  we 
remember  that  one  and  all  of  them—"  alike, 
but  oh!  how  different"— are  fit  birth-places 
and  abodes  for  poets.  Some  of  them  we  know 
veil,  are  flat— and  we  in  Scotland,  with  hills 
or  mountains  for  ever  before  our  eyes,  arc 
sometimes  disposed  to  find  fault  with  them  on 


that  ground — as  if  nature  were  not  at  liberty 
to  find  her  own  level.  Flat  indeed!  So  is  the 
sea.  Wait  till  you  have  walked  a  few  miles 
in  among  the  Fens — and  you  will  be  wafted 
along  like  a  little  sail-boat,  up  and  down 
undulations  green  and  gladsome  as  waves. 
Think  ye  there  is  no  scenery  there  1  Why, 
you  are  in  the  heart  of  a  vast  metropolis  ! — yet 
have  not  the  sense  to  see  the  silent  city  of 
mole-hills  sleeping  in  the  sun.  Call  that  pond 
a  lake — and  by  a  word  how  is  it  transfigured? 
Now  you  discern  flowers  unfolding  on  its  low 
hanks  and  braes — and  the  rustle  of  the  rushes 
is  like  that  of  a  tiny  forest — how  appropriate 
to  the  wild!  Gaze — and  to  your  gaze  what 
colouring  grows!  Not  in  green  only — or  in 
russet  brown  doth  nature  choose  to  be  ap- 
parelled in  this  her  solitude — nor  ever  again 
will  you  call  her  dreary  here — for  see  how 
every  one  of  those  fifty  flying  showers  lightens 
up  its  own  line  of  beauty  along  the  plain — in- 
stantaneous as  dreams — or  stationary  as  wak- 
ing thought — till,  ere  you  are  aware  that  all 
was  ciianging,  the  variety  has  all  melted  away 
into  one  harmonious  glow,  attempered  by  that 
rainbow. 

Let  these  few  words  suflice  to  show  that  Me 
understand  and  feel  the  flattest — dullest — tam- 
est places,  as  they  are  most  ignorantly  called 
— that  have  yel  been  discovered  in  England. 
Nut  in  such  did  John  Clare  abide — but  many 
such  he  hath  traversed ;  and  his  studies  have 
been  from  childhood  upwards  among  scenes 
which  to  ordinary  eyes  might  seem  to  atford 
small  scope  and  few  materials  for  contempla- 
tion. But  his  are  not  ordinary  eyes — but 
gifted;  and  in  ever)'  nook  and  corner  of  his 
own  county  the  Norlhamjitonshire  Peasant 
has.  during  some  two  score  years  and  more, 
every  spring  found  without  seeking  either 
some  lovelier  aspect  of  "  the  old  familiar 
faces,"  or  some  new  faces  smiling  upon  him, 
as  if  mutual  recognition  kindled  joy  and  amity 
in  their  hearts. 

Jiihn  Clare  often  reminds  us  of  James  Gra- 
hame.  They  are  two  of  our  most  artless  poets. 
Their  versification  is  mostly  very  sweet,  though 
rather  flowing  forth  according  to  a  certain 
fine  natural  sense  of  melody,  than  constructed 
on  any  principles»of  music.  So,  too,  with  their 
imagery,  which  seems  seldom  selected  with 
much  care;  so  that,  while  it  is  always  true  to 
nature,  and  often  possesses  a  charm  from  its 
appearing  to  rise  up  of  itself,  and  with  little  or 
no  etforl  on  the  pixel's  part  to  form  a  picture,  it 
is  not  unfrequently  chargeable  with  repetition 
— sometimes,  pet  haps,  with  a  sameness  which, 
but  for  the  inherent  interest  in  the  objects 
themselves,  might  be  felt  a  little  wearisome — 
there  is  so  much  still  life.  They  are  both  most 
aflectionately  disposed  towards  all  manner  of 
birds.  Graliame's  "  Birds  of  Scotland"  is  a 
delightful  poem;  yet  its  best  passages  are 
not  superior  to  some  of  Clare's  about  the 
same  charming  creatures — and  they  are  both 
ornitholoirists  after  .Vudubon's  and  our  own 
heart.  M'ere  all  that  has  been  well  written 
in  English  verse  about  birds  to  be  gathered 
together,  what  a  sweet  set  of  volumes  it  would 
make!  And  how  many,  think  ye — three,  six, 
twelve!     That  would  be  indeed  an  aviary — 


AN  HOUR'S  TALK  ABOUT  POETRY. 


85 


the  only  one  we  can  think  of  with  pleasure — 
out  of  the  hedge-rows  and  the  woods.  Tories 
as  we  are,  we  never  see  a  wild  bird  on  the 
wing  without  inhaling  in  silence  "  the  Cause 
of  Liberty  all  over  the  world  !"  We  feel  then 
that  it  is  indeed  "like  the  air  we  breathe — 
without  it  we  die."  So  do  they.  We  have 
been  reading  lately,  for  a  leisure  hour  or  two 
of  an  evening — a  volume  by  a  worthy  German, 
Doctor  Bechstein — on  Cage  Birds.  The  slave- 
dealer  never  for  a  moment  suspects  the  wicked- 
ness of  kidnapping  young  and  old — crimping 
them  for  life — teaching  them  to  draw  water — 
and,  oh  ncfasJ  to  sing!  He  seems  to  think 
that  only  in  confinement  do  they  fulfil  the  ends 
of  their  existence — even  the  skylark.  Yet  he 
sees  them,  one  and  all,  subject  to  the  most 
miserable  diseases — and  rotting  away  within 
the  wires.  Why  could  not  the  Doctor  have 
taken  a  stroll  inio  the  country  once  or  twice  a- 
week,  and  in  one  morning  or  evening  hour 
laid  in  sufficient  music  to  serve  him  during 
the  intervening  time,  without  causing  a  single 
bosom  to  be  rufilcd  for  his  sake?  Shoot  them 
— spit  them — pie  them — pickle  them — eat  them 
— but  imprison  them  not;  we  speak  as  Con- 
servatives— murder  rather  than  immure  them 
— for  more  forgivable  far  it  is  to  cut  short 
their  songs  at  the  height  of  glee,  than  to  pro- 
tract them  in  a  rueful  simulation  of  music,  in 
which  you  hear  the  same  sweet  notes,  but  if 
your  heart  thinks  at  all,  "a  voice  of  weeping 
and  of  loud  lament"  all  unlike,  alas!  to  the 
congratulation  that  from  the  free  choirs  is 
ringing  so  exultingly  in  their  native  woods. 

How  prettily  Clare  writes  of  the  "insect 
youth." 

"Thpse  tiny  loitprnrson  Itie  barley's  beard, 
And  bappy  units  of  a  niniiernus  herd 
Of  playfellows  the  laiieliiii!!  Summer  brines, 
Morkiiig  the  Fuiit-hine  on  their  t'liiterine  wings. 
How  merrily  they  creep,  and  run,  and  fly  ! 
No  kin  they  hear  lo  labour"?  drudgery, 
Pnioolhine  the  velvet  of  the  pale  jiedRe-rose  ; 
And  where  they  tly  for  dinner  no  one  knows— 
The  dewdrops  i'eed  them  not— ihey  love  the  shine 
Of  noon,  whose  sons  may  bring  them  golden  wine. 
All  day  they're  playing  in  their  Sunday  dress — 
When  niuht  repose,  for  Ihey  ran  do  no  less  ; 
Then  to  the  heath-bell's  purple  hood  they  tly. 
And  like  to  princes  in  their  slumbers  lie, 
Pecnre  from  rain,  and  dropping  dews,  and  all. 
In  silken  beds  and  roomy  painted  hall. 
So  merrily  they  spend  their  summer-day. 
Now  in  tlie  corn-lields,  now  in  the  new-mown  hay. 
One  almost  fancies  that  such  happy  things, 
With  colour'd  hoods  and  richly-burnish'd  wings, 
Are  fairy  folk,  in  splendid  masquerade 
Disguised,  as  if  of  mortal  folk  afraid. 
Keeping  their  joyous  pranks  a  mystery  still. 
Lest  glaring  day  should  do  their  secrets  ill." 

Time  has  been — nor  yet  very  long  ago — 
when  such  unpretending  poetry  as  this — hum- 
ble indeed  in  every  sense,  but  nevertheless  the 
product  of  genius  which  speaks  for  itself  audi- 
bly and  clearly  in  lowliest  strains — would  not 
have  passed  by  unheeded  or  unbeloved;  now- 
a-days  it  may  to  many  who  hold  their  heads 
high,  seem  of  no  more  worth  than  an  old  song. 
But  as  Wordsworth  says, 

"  Pleasures  newly  found  are  sweet. 
Though  they  lie  about  our  feet ;" 

and  if  stately  people  would  but  stoop  and  look 
about  their  paths,  which  do  not  always  run 
along  the  heights,  they  would  often  make  dis- 
coveries of  what  concerned  them  more  than 
speculations  among  the  stars. 


It  is  not  to  be  thought,  however,  that  the 
Northamptonshire  Peasant  does  not  often  treat 
earnestly  of  the  common  pleasures  and  pains, 
the  cares  and  occupations  of  that  condition  of 
life  in  which  he  was  born,  and  has  passed  all 
his  days.  He  knows  them  well,  and  has  illus- 
trated them  M-ell,  though  seldomer  in  his  later 
than  in  his  earlier  poems  ;  and  we  cannot  help 
thinking  that  he  might  greatly  extend  his  popu- 
larity, which  in  England  is  considerable,  by 
devoting  his  Rural  Muse  to  subjects  lying 
within  his  ken,  and  of  everlasting  interest. 
Bloomfield's  reputation  rests  on  his  "Farmer's 
Boy" — on  some  exquisite  passages  on  "News 
from  the  Farm" — and  on  some  of  the  tales  and 
pictures  in  his  "  May-day  with  the  Muses."  His 
smaller  poems  are  very  inferior  to  those  of 
Clare — But  the  Northamptonshire  Peasant  has 
MTitten  nothing  in  which  all  honest  English 
hearts  must  delight,  at  all  comparable  with 
those  truly  rural  compositions  of  the  Suffolk 
shoemaker.  It  is  in  his  power  to  do  so — would 
he  but  earnestly  set  himself  lo  the  work.  He 
must  be  more  familiar  with  all  the  ongoings 
of  rural  life  than  his  compeer  could  have 
been  ;  nor  need  he  fear  to  tread  again  the  same 
ground,  for  it  is  as  new  as  if  it  had  never  been 
touched,  and  will  continue  to  be  so  till  the  end 
of  time.  The  soil  in  which  the  native  virtues 
of  the  English  character  grow,  is  unexhausted 
and  inexhaustible;  let  him  break  it  up  on  any 
spot  he  chooses,  and  poetry  will  spring  to  light 
like  clover  from  lime.  Nor  need  he  fear  being 
an  imitator.  His  mind  is  an  original  one,  his 
most  indifferent  verses  prove  it;  for  though 
he  must  have  read  much  poetry  since  his  ear- 
lier day — doubtless  all  our  best  modern  poetry 
— he  retains  his  own  style,  which  though  it  be 
not  marked  by  any  very  strong  characteristics, 
is  yet  sufficiently  peculiar  to  show  that  it  be- 
longs to  himself,  and  is  a  natural  gift.  Pasto- 
rals— eclogues — and  idyl.s — in  a  hundred  forms 
— remain  to  be  written  by  such  poets  as  he 
and  his  brethren ;  and  there  can  be  nq  doubt 
at  all,  that  if  he  will  spheme  something  of  the 
kind,  and  begin  upon  it,  without  waiting  to 
know  fully  or  clearly  what  he  may  be  intend- 
ing, that  before  three  winters,  with  their  long 
nights,  are  gone,  he  will  find,  himself  in  pos- 
session of  more  than  mere  materials  for  a 
volume  of  poems  that  will  meet  with  general 
acceptation,  and  give  him  a  permanent  place 
by  the  side  of  him  he  loves  so  well — Robert 
Bloomfield. 

Ebenezer  Elliot  (of  whom  more  another  day) 
claims  with  pride  to  be  the  Poet  of  the  Poor — 
and  the  poor  might  well  be  proud,  did  they 
know  it,  that  they  have  such  a  poet.  Not  a 
few  of  them  know  it  now — and  many  will 
know  it  in  future  ;  for  a  muse  of  fire  like  his 
will  yet  send  its  illumination  "into  dark  deep 
holds."  May  it  consume  all  the  noxious  va- 
pours that  infest  such  regions — and  purify  the 
atmosphere — till  the  air  breathed  there  be  the 
breath  of  life.  But  the  poor  have  other  poets 
besides  him — Crabbe  and  Burns.  We  again 
mention  their  names — and  no  more.  Kindly 
spirits  were  they  both;  but  Burns  had  experi 
enced  all  his  poetry — and  therefore  his  poetry 
is  an  embodiment  of  national  character.  We 
say  it  not  in  disparagement  or  reproof  of  Ebe- 
H 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


uezer — conspicuous  over  all — for  let  all  men 
speak  as  they  think  or  feel — but  how  gentle  in 
all  his  noblest  inspirations  was  Robin  !  He 
did  not  shun  sins  or  sorrows ;  but  he  told  the 
truth  of  the  poor  man's  life,  when  he  showed 
that  it  was,  on  the  whole,  virtuous  and  happy 
— bear  witness  those  immortal  strains,  "The 
Twa  Dogs,"  "The  Vision,"  "The  Cottar's 
Saturday  night,"  the  sangs  voiced  all  braid 
Scotland  thorough  by  her  boys  and  virgins,  say 
rather  her  lads  and  lassies — while  the  lark 
sings  aloft  and  the  linnet  below,  the  mavis  in 
the  golden  broom  accompanying  the  music  in 
the  golden  cloud.  We  desire — not  in  wilful 
delusion — but  in  earnest  hope — in  devout  trust 
— that  poetry  shall  show  that  the  paths  of  the 
peasant  poor  are  paths  of  pleasantness  and 
peace.  If  they  should  seem  in  that  light  even 
pleasanter  and  more  peaceful  than  they  ever 
now  can  be  below  the  sun,  think  not  that  any 
evil  can  arise  "  to  mortal  man  who  iiveth  here 
by  toil"  from  such  representations — for  imagi- 
nation and  reality  are  not  two  ditlerent  things 
— they  blend  in  life;  but  there  the  darker  sha- 
dows do  often,  alas  !  prevail — and  sometimes 
may  be  felt  even  by  the  hand ;  whereas  in 
poetry  the  lights  are  triumphant — and  gazing 
on  the  glory  men's  hearts  burn  within  tliem — 
and  they  carry  the  joy  in  among  their  own 
griefs,  till  despondency  gives  way  to  exulta- 
tion, and  the  day's  dargof  tliis  worky  world  is 
lightened  by  a  dawn  of  dreams. 

'I'his  is  the  effect  of  all  cood  poetry — accord- 
ing to  its  power — of  the  jioetry  of  Robert 
Bloomfield  as  of  the  poetry  of  Robert  Burns. 
John  Clare,  too,  is  well  entitled  to  a  portion  of 
such  praise ;  and  therefore  his  name  deserves 
to  become  a  household  word  in  the  dwellings 
of  the  rural  poor.  Living  in  leisure  among 
the  scenes  in  which  he  once  toiled,  may  he 
once  more  contemplate  them  all  without  dis- 
turbance. Having  lost  none  of  his  sympa- 
thies, he  has  learnt  to  refine  them  all  and  sec 
into  their  source — and  wiser  in  his  simplicity 
than  they  who  were  formerly  his  yokefellow's 
are  in  theirs,  he  knows  many  things  well  which 
they  know  imperfectly  or  not  at  all,  and  is  pri- 
vileged therein  to  be  their  teacher.  Surely  in 
an  age  when  rtie  smallest  contribution  to 
science  is  duly  estimated,  and  useful  know- 
ledge not  only  held  in  honour  but  diffused, 
poetry  ought  not  to  be  despised,  more  especi- 
ally when  emanating  from  them  who  belong 
to  the  very  condition  which  they  seek  to  illus- 
trate, and  whose  ambition  it  is  to  do  justice  to 
its  natural  enjoyments  and  appropriate  virtues. 
In  spite  of  all  they  have  suffered,  and  still  suf- 
fer, the  peasantry  of  England  are  a  race  that 
may  be  regarded  with  better  feelings  than 
pride.  We  look  forward  confidently  to  the 
time  when  education— already  in  much  aood— 
and  if  the  plans  of  the  \viscsi  counsellors  pre- 
vail, about  to  become  altogether  good— will 
raise  at  once  their  condition  and  their  charac- 
ter. The  Government  has  its  duties  to  dis- 
charge—clear as  day.  And  what  is  not  in  the 
power  of  the  gentlemen  of  England  1  Let 
them  exert  that  power  to  the  utmost — and  then 
indeed  they  will  deserve  the  noble  name  of 
-•Aristocracy."  We  speak  not  thus  in  re- 
proach—for  they   better    deserve   that   na.iie 


than  the  same  order  in  any  other  country ;  but 
in  no  other  country  are  such  interests  given  to 
that  order  in  trust — and  as  they  attend  to  that 
trust  is  the  glory  or  the  shame — the  blessing 
or  the  curse — of  their  high  estate. 

But  let  us  retrace  our  footsteps  in  moraliz- 
ing mood,  not  unmixed  with  sadness — to  the 
Mausoleum  of  Burns.  Scotland  is  abused  by 
England  for  having  starved  Burns  to  death,  or 
for  having  sufiered  him  to  drink  himself  to 
death,  out  of  a  cup  filled  to  the  brim  with  bit- 
ter disappointment  and  black  desj^air.  Eng- 
land lies.  There  is  our  gage-glove,  let  her 
take  it  up,  and  then  for  mortal  combat  with 
sword  and  spear^-only  not  on  horseback — for, 
for  reasons  on  which  it  would  be  idle  to  be 
more  explicit,  we  always  fight  now  on  foot, 
and  have  sent  our  high  horse  to  graze  all  the 
rest  o{  his  life  on  the  mountains  of  the  moon. 
Well  then,  Scotland  met  Burns,  on  his  first 
sun-burst,  with  one  exulting  acclaim.  Scot- 
land bought  and  read  his  poetry,  and  Bnms, 
for  a  poor  man,  became  rich — rich  to  his 
heart's  desire — and  reached  the  summit  of  his 
ambition,  in  the  way  of  this  world's  life,  in  a 
— Farm.  Blithe  Robin  would  have  scorned 
"  an  awmous"  from  any  hands  but  from  those 
of  nature;  nor  in  those  days  needed  he  help 
from  woman-born.  True,  that  times  begun  by 
and  by  to  go  rather  hard  with  him,  and  he 
\vilh  them  ;  for  his  mode  of  life  was  not 

"  Such  n»  eravc  livi-rg  do  in  Pcoiland  UKe," 
and  as  we  sow  wc  must  reap.  His  day  of  life 
began  to  darken  ere  meridian — and  the  dark- 
ness doubtless  had  brought  disturbance  before 
it  had  been  perceived  by  any  ryes  but  his  own 
— for  people  are  always  looking  to  themselves 
and  their  own  lot;  and  how  much  mortal 
misery  may  for  years  be  daily  depicted  in  the 
face,  figure,  or  manners  even  of  a  friend,  with- 
out our  seeing  or  suspecting  it !  Till  all  at 
once  he  makes  a  confession,  and  we  then  know 
that  he  has  been  long  numbered  among  the 
most  \vretched  of  the  wretched — the  slave  of 
his  own  sins  and  sorrows — or  thralled  beneath 
those  of  another.  lf>  whom  fat<'  may  have  given 
sovereign  power  over  his  whole  life.  Well, 
then — or  rather  ill,  then — Burns  behaved  as 
most  men  do  in  misery — and  the  farm  going 
to  ruin — that  is,  crop  and  stock  to  pay  the  rent 
— he  desired  to  be — and  was  made — an  Ex- 
ciseman. And  for  that — you  ninny — you  are 
whinnying  scornfully  at  Scotland  !  Many  a 
better  man  than  yourself — beg  your  pardon — 
has  been,  and  is  now.  an  Exciseman.  Nay, 
to  be  plain  with  you — we  doubt  if  your  educa- 
tion has  been  sufliciently  intellectual  for  an 
Exciseman.  We  never  heard  it  said  of  )-ou, 
"And  even  the  story  rnn  that  he  could  gauge." 

Burns  then  was  made  what  he  desired  to  be — 
what  he  was  fit  for — though  you  are  not — and 
what  \yas  in  itself  respectable — an  Exciseman. 
His  salary  was  not  so  large  certainly  as  that 
of  the  Bishop  of  Durham — or  even  of  London 
— but  it  was  certainly  larger  than  that  of  many 
a  curate  at  that  time  doing  perhaps  double  or 
treble  duly  in  those  dioceses,  without  much 
audible  complaint  on  their  part,  or  outcry  from 
Scotland  against  blind  and  brutal  English  bi- 
shops, or  against  beggarly  England,  for  starving 


AN  HOUR'S  TALK  ABOTTT  POETRY. 


87 


her  pauper-curates,  by  whatever  genius  or 
erudition  adorned.  Burns  died  an  Exciseman, 
it  is  true,  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven ;  on  the 
same  day  died  an  English  curate  we  could 
name,  a  surpassing  scholar,  and  of  stainless 
virtue,  blind,  palsied,  "old  and  miserably 
poor" — without  as  much  money  as  would  bury 
him;  and  no  wonder,  for  he  never  had  the 
salary  of  a  Scotch  Exciseman. 

Two  blacks — nay  twenty — won't  make  a 
white.  True — but  one  black  is  as  black  as 
another — and  the  Southern  Pot,  brazen  as 
it  is,  must  not  abuse  with  impunity  the  North- 
ern Pan.  But  now  to  the  right  nail,  and  let  us 
knock  it  on  the  head.  What  did  England  do 
for  her  own  Bloomfield  1  He  was  not  in  ge- 
nius to  be  spoken  of  in  the  same  year  with 
Burns — but  he  was  beyond  all  compare,  and 
out  of  all  sight,  the  best  poet  that  had  arisen 
produced  by  England's  lower  orders.  He  was 
the  most  spiritual  shoemaker  that  ever  handled 
an  awl.  The  Farmer's  Boy  is  a  wonderful 
poem — and  will  live  in  the  poetry  of  England. 
Did  England,  then,  keep  Bloomfield  in  comfort, 
and  scatter  (lowers  along  the  smooth  and 
sunny  path  that  led  him  to  the  grave!  No. 
He  had  given  him,  by  some  minister  or  other, 
we  believe  Lord  Sidmouth,  a  paltry  place  in 
some  office  or  other — most  uncongenial  with 
all  his  nature  and  all  his  habits — of  which  the 
shabby  salary  was  insufficient  to  purchase  for 
his  family  eveu  the  bare  necessaries  of  life. 
He  thus  dragged  out  for  many  long  obscure 
years  a  sickly  existence,  as  miserable  as  the 
existence  of  a  good  man  can  be  made  by 
narrowest  circumstances — and  all  the  while 
Englishmen  were  scoffingly  scorning,  with 
haughty  and  bitter  taunts,  the  patronage  that, 
at  his  own  earnest  desire,  made  Burns  an  Ex- 
ciseman. Nay,  when  Southey,  late  in  Bloom- 
field's  life,  and  when  it  was  drawing  mourn- 
fully to  a  close,  proposed  a  contribution  for 
his  behoof,  and  put  down  his  own  five  pounds, 
how  many  purse-strings  were  untied  1  how 
much  fine  gold  was  poured  out  for  the  indi- 
gent son  of  genius  and  virtue!  Shame  shuffles 
the  sum  out  of  sight — for  it  was  not  sufficient 
to  have  bought  the  manumission  of  an  old 
negro  slave. 

It  was  no  easy  matter  to  deal  rightly  with 
such  a  man  as  Burns.  In  those  disturbed  and 
distracted  times,  still  more  difficult  was  it  to 
carry  into  execution  any  designs  for  his  good — 
and  much  was  there  even  to  excuse  his  coun- 
trymen then  in  power  for  looking  upon  him 
with  an  evil  eye.  But  Bloomfield  led  a  pure, 
peaceable,  and  blameless  life.  Easy,  indeed, 
would  it  have  been  to  make  him  happy — but 
he  was  as  much  forgotten  as  if  he  had  been 
dead ;  and  when  he  died — did  England  mourn 
over  him — or,  after  having  denied  him  bread, 
give  him  so  much  as  a  stone  1  No.  He  dropt 
into  the  grave  with  no  other  lament  we  ever 
heard  of  but  a  few  copies  of  poorish  verses  in 
some  of  the  Annuals,  and  seldom  or  never  now 
does  one  hear  a  whisper  of  his  name.  O  fie  ! 
well  may  the  white  rose  blush  red — and  the 
red  rose' turn  pale.  Let  England  then  leave 
Scotland  to  her  sh;ime  about  Burns  ;  and,  think- 
ing of  her  own  treatment  of  Bloomfield,  cover 
her  own  face  with  both  her  hands,  and  con- 


fess that  it  was  pitiful.  At  least,  if  she  will  n&. 
hang  down  her  head  in  humiliation  for  her  own 
neglect  of  her  own  "poetic  child,"  let  her  not 
hold  it  high  over  Scotland  for  the  neglect  of 
hers — palliated  as  that  neglect  was  by  many 
things — and  since,  in  some  measure,  expiated 
by  a  whole  nation's  tears  shed  over  her  great 
poet's  grave. 

What !  not  a  word  for  Allan  Ramsay  1  The- 
ocritus was  a  pleasant  Pastoral,  and  Sicilia  sees 
him  among  the  stars.  But  all  his  dear  Idyls 
together  are  not  equal  in  worth  to  the  single 
Gentle  Shepherd.  Habbie's  How  is  a  hallowed 
place  now  among  the  green  airy  Pentlands. 
Sacred  for  ever  the  solitary  murmur  of  that 
waterfa' ! 

"  A  flowerie  howm,  between  twa  verdant  l)raes, 
Where  lassies  use  to  wash  and  bleach  their  claes; 
A  trotting  bnrnie,  wimpling  through  the  frround. 
It's  channel  pebbles,  shining,  smooth,  and  round: 
Here  view  twa  baretoct  beauties,  clean  and  clear, 
'Twill  please  your  eye,  then  gratify  your  ear; 
While  Jenny  what  she  wishes  discommends. 
And  Meg,  with  better  sense,  true  love  defends  !" 

"About  them  and  siclike,"  is  the  whole  poem. 
Yet  "  faithful  loves  shall  memorize  the  song." 
Without  any  scenery  but  that  of  rafters,  which 
overhead  fancy  may  suppose  a  grove,  'tis  even 
yet  sometimes  acted  by  rustics  in  the  barn, 
though  nothing  on  this  earth  will  ever  persuade 
a  low-born  Scottish  lass  to  take  a  part  in  a  play; 
while  delightful  is  felt,  even  by  the  lords  and 
ladies  of  the  land,  the  simple  Drama  of  humble 
life  ;  and  we  ourselves  have  seen  a  high-born 
maiden  look  "  beautiful  exceedingly"  as  Patie's 
Betrothed,  kilted  to  the  knee  in  the  kirtle  of  a 
Shepherdess. 

We  have  been  gradually  growing  national 
overmuch,  and  are  about  to  grow  even  more 
so,  therefore  ask  you  to  what  era,  pray,  did 
Thomson  belong?  To  none.  Thomson  had 
no  precursor — and  till  Cowper  no  follower.  He 
efTulged  all  at  once  sunlike — like  Scotland's 
storm-loving,  mist-enamoured  sun,  which  till 
you  have  seen  on  a  day  of  thunder,  you  can- 
not be  said  ever  to  have  seen  the  sun.  Cow- 
per followed  Thomson  merely  in  time.  We 
should  have  had  the  Task,  even  had  we  never 
had  the  Seasons.  These  two  were  "Heralds 
of  a  mighty  train  ensuing;"  add  them,  then,  to 
the  worthies  of  our  own  age,  and  they  belong 
to  it — and  all  the  rest  of  the  poetry  of  the  mo- 
dern world — to  which  add  that  of  the  ancient — 
if  multiplied  by  ten  in  quantity — and  by  twenty 
in  quality — would  not  so  variously,  so  vigor- 
ously, and  so  truly  image  the  form  and  pres- 
sure, the  life  and  spirit  of  the  mother  of  us  all 

Nature.     Are  then  the  Seasons  and  the  Task 

Great  Poems!  Yes,— Why !  What!  Do 
you  need  to  be  told  that  that  Poem  must  be 
great,  which  was  the  first  to  paint  the  rolling 
mystery  of  the  year,  amd  to  show  that  all  its 
Seasons  are  but  the  varied  God !  The  idea 
was  original  and  sublime ;  and  the  fulfilment 
thereof  so  complete,  that  some  six  thousand 
years  having  elapsed  between  the  creation  of 
the  world  and  of  that  poem,  some  sixty  thou- 
sand, we  prophesy,  will  elapse  between  the  ap- 
pearance of  that  poem  and  the  publication  of 
another  equally  great,  on  a  subject  external  to 
the  mind,  equally  magnificent.  We  furtlier 
presume,  that  you   hold    sacr'^d   the   Hearth. 


88 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


Now,  in  the  Task,  the  Hearth  is  the  heart  of 
the  poem,  just  as  it  is  of  a  happy  house.  No 
other  poem  is  so  full  of  domestic  happiness — 
humble  and  high  ;  none  is  so  breathed  over  by 
the  spirit  of  the  Christian  religion. 

Poetry,  which,  though  not  dead,  had  long 
been  sleeping  in  Scotland,  was  restored  to 
waking  life  by  Thomson.  His  genius  was  na- 
tional ;  and  so,  too,  was  the  subject  of  his  first 
and  greatest  song.  By  saying  that  his  genius 
was  national,  we  mean  that  its  temperament 
was  enthusiastic  and  passicmatc,  and  that, 
though  highly  imaginative,  the  sources  of  its 
power  lay  in  the  heart.  The  Castle  of  Indo- 
lence is  distinguished  by  purer  taste  and  finer 
fancy;  but  with  all  its  exquisite  beauties,  that 
poem  is  but  the  vision  of  a  dream.  The  Sea- 
sons are  glorious  realities ;  and  the  charm  of 
the  strain  that  sings  the  "  rolling  year"  is  its 
truth.  But  what  mean  we  by  saying  that  the 
Seasons  are  a  national  subject  1 — do  we  assert 
that  they  are  solely  Scottish  ?  That  would  be 
too  bold,  even  for  us;  but  we  scruple  not  to 
assert,  that  Thomson  has  made  them  so,  as  far 
as  might  be  without  insult,  injury,  or  injustice, 
to  the  rest  of  the  globe.  His  suns  rise  and  set 
in  Scottish  heavens;  his  "deep-fermentmg 
tempests  are  brewed  in  grim  evening"  Scot- 
tish skies  ;  Scottish  is  his  thunder  of  cloud  and 
cataract ;  his  "  vapours,  and  snows,  and  storms" 
are  Scottish  ;  and,  strange  as  the  assertion 
would  have  sounded  in  the  ears  of  Samuel 
Johnson,  Scottish  are  his  woods,  their  sugh, 
and  their  roar;  nor  less  their  stillness,  more 
awful  amidst  the  vast  multitude  of  steady 
stems,  than  when  all  the  sullen  pine-tops  are 
swinging  to  the  hurricane.  A  dread  love  of 
his  native  land  was  in  his  heart  when  he  cried 
in  the  solitude — 

"Hail,  kindrcil  glooms!  conpciiial  horrors  liail!" 
The  genius  of  Home  was  national — and  so, 
too,  was  the  subject  of  his  justly  famous  Tra- 
gedy of  Douglas.  He  had  studied  the  old  Bal- 
lads ;  their  simplicities  were  sweet  to  him  as 
wall-flowers  on  ruins.  On  the  story  of  Gill 
Morice,  who  was  an  Earl's  son,  he  founded  the 
Tragedy,  which  surely  no  Scottish  eyes  ever 
witnessed  without  tears.  Are  not  these  most 
Scottish  lines?— 

"  Ye  woods  anil  wilds,  whose  melancholy  gloom 
Accords  with  my  soul's  sadness  I" 

And  these  even  more  so — 

"Red  came  the  river  down,  and  lovid  and  oft 
The  anpry  Spirit  of  the  water  shriek'd  :" 

The  Scottish  Tragedian  in  an  evil  hour  crossed 
the  Tweed,  riding  on  horseback  all  the  way  to 
London.  His  genius  got  .\nslificd.  took  a  con- 
sumption, and  perished  in  the  priine  of  life.' 
But  nearly  half  a  century  afterwards,  on  see- 
ing the  Siddons  in  Lady  Rnndolj.h,  and  hearing 
her  low,  deep,  wild,  ws-begone  voice  exclaim, 
"My  beautiful!  my  brave!"  "the  aged  harp- 
er's  soul  awoke,"  and  his  dim  eyes  were  again 
lighted  up  for  a  moment  with  the  fires  of  ge- 
nius— say  rather  for  a  moment  bedewed  with 
the  tears  of  sensibility  re-awakened  from  decay 
and  dotage. 

The  genius  of  Beattie  was  national,  and  so 
was  the  subject  of  his  charming  song — The 
Minstrel.  For  what  is  its  design  1  He  Tells  us, 
(>  trace  the  progress  of  a  poetical  genius,  born 


in  a  rude  age,  from  the  first  dawning  of  reason 
and  fancy,  till  that  period  at  which  he  may  be 
supposed  capable  of  appearing  in  the  world  as 
a  Scottish  Minstrel;    that  is,  as  an*  itinerant 
poet  and  musician — a  character  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  notions  of  our  forefathers,  was  not 
only  respectable,  but  sacred. 
"There  lived  in  Gothic  days,  as  legends  ti-ll, 
A  shepherd  swain,  a  man  of  low  decree  ; 
Whose  sires  perchance  in  Fairyland  might  dwell, 

.Sicilian  groves  and  vales  of  Arcady  ; 
But  he,  I  ween,  was  of  the  North  Countrie  ; 

A  nation  famed  for  song  and  beauty's  charms; 
Zealous,  yet  modest ;  innocent,  though  free; 
Patient  of  toil,  serene  amid  alarms  ; 
Inflexible  in  faith,  invincible  in  arms. 
"The  shepherd  swain,  of  whom  I  mention  made. 
On  .Scotia's  mountains  (vd  his  little  flock  ; 
The  sickle,  scythe,  or  plough  he  never  sway'd; 

An  honest  heart  was  almost  all  his  stock; 
Ilis  drink  the  living  waters  from  the  rock  ; 

The  milky  dams  supplied  his  board,  and  lent 
Their  kiu<Ily  rtc»-cc  to  batfle  winter's  shock  ; 
And  he.  tliouEh  oft  with  dust  and  sweat  iH-sprent, 
Did  guide  and  guard  their  wanderings,  whvreso«'er 
they  went." 

Did  patriotism  ever  inspire  genius  with  senti- 
ment more  Scottish  than  that.'  Did  imagina- 
tion ever  create  scenery  more  Scottish,  Man- 
ners, Morals,  Life  ? 

"I,o:  where  the  stripling  wrapt  in  wonder  rovet 
Beneath  the  preripice  o'erhung  with  pine  ; 
And  sees,  on  liiL'h,  amidst  th'  encircling  grovei. 
From  clitTto  clilfihe  fuuining  torrents  stiinc  ; 
While  waters,  woods,  and  winds,  in  concert  join. 
And  echo  swells  the  chorus  to  the  skies." 

Beattie  chants  there  like  a  man  who  had  been 
at  the  Linn  of  Dee.  He  wore  a  wig,  it  is  true; 
but  at  times,  when  the  fit  M'as  on  him,  he  wrote 
like  the  unshorn  .Apollo. 

The  genius  of  Grahame  was  national,  and 
so  too  was  the  subject  of  his  first  and  best  poem 
—The  Sabbath. 

"  How  still  tbc  morning  of  the  hallow'd  day!" 
is  a  line  that  could  have  been  uttered  only  by 
a  holy  Scottish  heart.  For  we  alone  know 
what  is  indeed  SaMjaih  .silence — an  earnest  of 
everlasting  rest.  To  our  hearts,  the  very  birds 
of  Scotland  sing  holily  on  that  day.  \  sacred 
smile  is  on  the  dewy  flowers.  The  lilies  look 
whiter  in  their  loveliness;  the  blush-rose  red 
dens  in  the  sun  with  a  diviner  dye;  and  with 
a  more  celestial  scent  the  hoary  hawthorn 
sweetens  the  wilderness.  Sorely  disturbed  of 
yore,  over  the  glens  and  hills  of  Scotland,  was 
the  Day  of  Peace  ! 

"  Oh,  the  great  goodness  of  the  Saints  of  Old  /" 
the  Covenanters.     Listen  to  the  Sabbath  bard — 

"  With  them  each  day  was  holy  ;  but  that  morn 

On  which  the  angel  said,  'See  where  the  Lord 

Was  laid,' joyous  arose  ;  to  die  that  day 

Was  Miss.     Long  ere  the  dawn  by  devious  woys. 

O'er   hills,   through   woods,   o'er  dreary   wastes,  they 

sought 
The  upland  muirs  where  rivers,  there  but  brooks, 
Dispart  to  different  seas.     Fust  by  such  brooks 
.\  little  glen  is  sometimes  scoop'd,  n  plat 
With  greensward  gay,  and  flowers  that  strangers  seem' 
Amid  the  heathery  wild,  that  all  around 
Fatigues  the  eye  :  in  solitudes  like  these 
Thy  persecutell  children,  Scotia,  foil'd 
A  tyrant's  and  a  bisot's  bloody  laws. 
There,  leaning  on  his  spear,  (one  of  the  array 
Whose  eleam,  in  former  days,  hail  scathed  the  lo^e 
On  Encland's  l)aniier,  and  had  powerless  struck 
The  infatuate  monarch,  and  bis  wavering  host!) 
The  lyart  veteran  beard  the  wr)rd  of  God 
By  Cameron  thunder'd.or  by  Itenwick  pour'd 
In  gentle  stream  :  then  rose  the  song,  the  loud 
Acclaim  of  praise.     The  wheeling  plover  ceased 
Her  plaint  ;  the  solitary  place  was  glad  ; 
And  ou  the  distant  cairn  the  watcher's  ear 


AN  HOUR'S  TALK  ABOUT  POETRY. 


89 


Caught  doubtfully  at  times  the  breeze-borne  note. 
But  years  more  gloomy  follow'd  ;  aud  no  more 
The  assembled  people  dared,  in  face  of  day, 
To  worship  God,  or  even  at  the  dead 
Of  nijrht,  save  when  the  wintry  storm  raved  fierce, 
And  thunder-peals  compelled  the  men  of  blood 
To  couch  within  their  dens;  then  dauntlessly 
The  scatter'd  few  would  meet,  in  some  deep  dell 
By  rocks  o'ercanopied,  to  hear  the  voice, 
Their  faithful  pastor's  voice.     He  by  the  gleam 
Of  sheeted  liehtning  oped  the  sacred  book. 
And  words  of  comfort  spake  ;  over  their  souls 
His  accents  soothinj:  came,  as  to  her  young 
The  lieathfowl's  plumes,  when,  at  the  close  of  eve, 
She  gathers  in,  mournful,  her  brood  dispersed 
By  murderous  sport,  and  o'er  the  remnant  spreads 
Fondly  her  wings  ;  close  nestling  'neath  her  breast 
They  cherished  cower  amid  the  purple  bloom." 

Not  a  few  other  sweet  singers  or  strong,  na- 
tive to  this  nook  of  our  isle,  might  we  now  in 
these  humble  pages  lovingly  commemorate;  and 
"four  shall  we  mention,  dearer  than  the  rest," 
for  sake  of  that  virtue,  among  many  virtues, 
which  we  have  been  lauding  all  along,  their  na- 
tionality;— These  are  Aiun  and  Motherwell, 
(of  whom  another  hour,)  Moir  and  Pollok. 

Of  Moir,  our  own  "  delightful  Delta,"  as  we 
love  to  call  him — and  the  epithet  now  by  right 
appertains  to  his  name — we  shall  now  say 
simply  this,  that  he  has  produced  many  origi- 
nal pieces  which  will  possess  a  permanent 
place  in  the  poetry  of  Scotland.  Delicacy  and 
grace  characterize  his  happiest  compositions; 
some  of  them  are  beautiful  in  a  cheerful  spirit 
that  has  only  to  look  on  nature  to  be  happy ; 
and  others  breathe  the  simplest  and  purest 
pathos.  His  scenery,  whether  sea-coast  or 
inland,  is  always  truly  Scottish  ;  and  at  times 
his  pen  drops  touches  of  light  on  minute  ob- 
jects, that  till  then  had  slumbered  in  the  shade, 
but  now  "shine  well  where  they  stand"  or  lie, 
as  component  and  characteristic  parts  of  our 
lowland  landscapes.  Let  others  labour  away 
at  long  poems,  and  for  their  pains  get  neglect 
or  oblivion;  Moir  is  seen  as  he  is  in  many 
short  ones,  which  the  Scottish  Muses  may  "  not 
willingly  let  die."  And  that  must  be  a  pleasant 
thought  when  it  touches  the  heart  of  the  mild- 
est and  most  modest  of  men,  as  he  sits  by  his 
family-fire,  beside  those  most  dear  to  him, 
after  a  day  past  in  smoothing,  by  his  skill,  the 
bed  and  the  brow  of  pain,  in  restoring  sickness 
to  health,  in  alleviating  sufferings  that  cannot 
be  cured,  or  in  mitigating  the  pangs  of  death. 

Pollok  had  great  original  genius,  strong  in 
a  sacred  sense  of  religion.  Such  of  his  short 
compositions  as  we  have  seen,  written  in  early 
youth,  were  but  mere  copies  of  verses,  and 
gave  little  or  no  promise  of  power.  But  his 
soul  was  working  in  the  green  moorland  soli- 
tudes round  about  his  father's  house,  in  the 
wild  and  beautiful  parishes  of  Eaglesham  and 
Mearns,  separated  by  thee,  O  Yearn  !  sweetest 
of  pastoral  streams,  that  murmur  through  the 
west,  as  under  those  broomyand  birken  banks 
and  trees,  where  the  gray-linties  sing,  is  formed 
the  clear  junction  of  the  rills,  issuing,  the  one 
from  the  hill-spring  above  the  Black-waterfall, 
and  the  other  from  the  Brother-loch.  The 
poet  in  prime  of  youth  (he  died  in  his  twenty- 
seventh  year)  embarked  on  a  high  and  adven- 
turous emprise,  and  voyaged  the  illimitable 
Deep.  His  spirit  expanded  its  wings,  and  in 
a  holy  pride  felt  them  to  be  broad,  as  they 
hovered  over  the  dark  abyss.  The  "  Course  j 
12 


of  Time,"  for  so  young  a  man,  was  a  vast 
achievement.  The  book  he  loved  best  was 
the  Bible,  and  his  style  is  often  scriptural. 
Of  our  poets,  he  had  studied,  we  believe,  but 
Milton,  Young,  and  Byron.  He  had  much  to 
learn  in  composition ;  and,  had  he  lived,  he 
would  have  locked  almost  with  humiliation 
on  much  that  is  at  present  eulogized  by  his 
devoted  admirers.  But  the  soul  of  poetry  is 
there,  though  often  dimly  developed,  and  many 
passages  there  are,  and  long  ones  too,  that 
heave,  and  hurrj',  and  glow  along  in  a  divine 
enthusiasm. 

"  His  ears  he  closed,  to  listen  to  the  strains 
That  Sion's  bards  did  consecrate  of  old. 
And  fix'd  his  Pindus  upon  Lebanon." 

Let  us  fly  again  to  England,  and  leaving  for 
another  hour  Shelley  and  Hunt  and  Keates, 
and  Croly  and  Milman  and  Heber,  and  Ster- 
ling and  Milnes  and  Tennyson,  with  some 
younger  aspirants  of  our  own  day  ;  and  Gray, 
Collins,  and  Goldsmith,  and  lesser  stars  of  that 
constellation,  let  us  alight  on  the  verge  of  that 
famous  era  when  the  throne  was  occupied  by 
Dryden,  and  then  by  Pope — searching  still  for 
a  Great  Poem.  Did  either  of  them  ever  write 
one  ?  No — never.  Sir  Walter  says  finely  of 
glorious  John, 

"  And  Dryden  in  immortal  strain. 
Had  raised  the  Table  Round  again. 
But  that  a  ribald  King  and  Court 
Bade  him  play  on  to  make  them  sport. 
The  world  defrauded  of  the  high  design. 
Profaned  the  God-given  strength,  and  niarr'd  the  lofty 
line." 

But  why,  we  ask,  did  Dryden  suffer  a  ribald 
king  and  court  to  debase  and  degrade  him,  and 
strangle  his  immortal  strain  1  Because  he 
was  poor.  But  could  he  not  have  died  of  cold, 
thirst,  and  hunger — of  starvation?  Have  not 
millions  of  men  and  women  done  so,  rather 
than  sacrifice  their  conscience  !  And  shall  we 
grant  to  a  great  poet  that  indulgence  which 
many  an  humble  hind  would  have  flung  with 
scorn  in  our  teeth,  and  rather  than  hav 
availed  himself  of  it,  faced  the  fagot,  or  the 
halter,  or  the  stake  set  within  the  sea-flood? 
But  it  is  satisfactory  to  know  that  Dryden, 
though  still  glorious  John,  was  not  a  Great 
Poet.  He  was  seldom  visited  by  the  pathetic' 
or  the  sublime — else  had  his  genius  held  fast 
its  integrity — been  ribald  to  no  ribald — and 
indignantly  kicked  to  the  devil  both  court  and 
king.  But  what  a  master  of  reasoning  in 
verse !  And  of  verse  what  a  volume  of 
fire  !  "The  long-resounding  march  and  ener- 
gy divine."  Pope,  again,  with  the  common 
frailties  of  humanity,  was  an  ethereal  creature 
— and  played  on  his  own  harp  with  finest  taste, 
and  wonderful  execution.  We  doubt,  indeed, 
if  such  a  finished  style  has  ever  been  heard 
since  from  any  one  of  the  King  Apollo's  mu- 
sicians. His  versification  may  be  monoto- 
nous, but  without  a  sweet  and  potent  charm 
only  to  ears  of  leather.  That  his  poetry 
has  no  passion  is-  the  creed  of  critics  "of 
Cambyses'  vein  ;"  Heloise  and  the  Unfortunate 
Lady  have  made  the  world's  heart  to  throb. 
As  for  Imagination,  we  shall  continue  till  such 
time  as  that  faculty  has  been  distinguished 
from  Fancy,  to  see  it  shining  in  the  Rape  of 
the  Lock,  with  a  lambent  lustre  ;  if  high  intel- 
h2 


90 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


lect  be  not  dominant  in  his  Epistles  and  his 
Essay  on  Man,  yon  will  look  for  it  in  vain  in 
the  nineteenth  century  ;  all  other  Satires  seem 
complimentary  to  their  victims  when  read  after 
the  Dunciad — and  could  a  man,  whose  heart 
was  not  heroic,  have  given  us  another  Iliad, 
which,  all  unlike  as  it  is  to  the  Greek,  may  be 
read  with  transport,  even  after  Homer's  ? 

We  have  not  yet,  it  would  seem,  found  the 
objects  of  our  searcli — a  Great  Poem.  Let  us 
extend  our  quest  into  the  Elizabethan  age.  We 
are  at  once  sucked  into  the  theatre.  With  the 
whole  drama  of  that  age  we  are  conversant 
and  familiar;  but  whether  we  understand  it  or 
not,  is  another  question.  It  aspires  to  give 
representations  of  Human  Life  in  all  its  in- 
finite varieties,  and  inconsistencies,  and  con- 
flicts, and  turmoils  produced  by  the  Passions. 
Time  and  space  are  not  suffered  to  interpose 
their  unities  between  the  Poet  and  his  vast 
design,  who,  provided  he  can  satisfy  the  spec- 
tators by  the  pageant  of  their  own  passions 
moving  across  the  stage,  may  exhibit  ihere 
whatever  he  wills  from  life,  death,  or  the  grave. 
'Tis  a  sublime  conception — and  sometimes 
has  given  rise  to  sublime  performance;  but 
has  been  crowned  with  full  success  in  no  hands 
but  those  of  Shakspeare.  Great  as  was  the 
genius  of  many  of  the  dramatists  of  that  age, 
not  one  of  them  has  produced  a  Great  Tragedy. 
Great  Tragedy  indeed  !  What!  without  harmo- 
ny or  proportion  in  the  plan — with  all  puzzling 
perplexities  and  inextricable  entanglements  in 
tile  plot,  and  with  disgust  and  horror  in  the  catas- 
trophe ]  As  for  the  characters,  male  and  female 
—saw  ye  ever  such  a  set  of  swaggerers  and  ran- 
tipoles  as  they  often  are  in  one  act — Methodist 
preachers  and  demure  young  women  at  a  love- 
ieast  in  another — absolute  heroes  and  heroines 
of  high  calibre  in  a  third — and  so  on,  changing 
and  shifting  name  and  nature,  according  to  the 
laws  of  the  Romantic  Drama  forsooth — but  in 
hideous  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature — till  the 
curtain  falls  over  a  heap  of  bodies  huddled  to- 
gether, without  regard  to  age  or  sex,  as  if  tliey 
had  been  overtaken  in  liquor!  We  admit  that 
there  is  gross  exaggeration  in  the  picture;  but 
there  is  always  truth  in  a  tolerable  caricature 
— and  this  is  one  of  a  tragedy  of  Webster, 
Ford,  or  Massinger. 

It  is  satisfactory  to  know  that  the  good  sense, 
and  good  feeling,  and  good  taste  of  the  people 
of  England,  will  not  submit  to  be  belaboured 
by  editors  and  critics  into  unqualified  admira- 
tion of  such  enormities.  The  Old  English 
Drama  Hes  buried  in  the  dust  with  all  its  trage- 
dies. Never  more  will  thej'  move  across  the 
stage.  Scholars  read  them,  and  often  with  de- 
light, admiration,  and  wonder;  for  genius  is  a 
strange  spirit.and  has  begotten  strange  children 
on  the  body  of  the  Tragic  Muse.  In  the  closet 
it  is  pleasant  to  peruse  the  countenances,  at 
once  divine,  human,  and  brutal,  of  the  incom- 
prehensible monsters — to  scan  their  forms, 
powerful  though  misshapen— to  watch  their 
movements,  vigorous  though  distorted — and  to 
hold  up  one's  hands  in  amazement  on  hearing 
ihem  not  seldom  discourse  most  excellent  mu- 
sic. But  we  should  shudder  to  see  them  on 
the  stage  enacting  the  parts  of  men  and  wo- 
men—and call  for  the  manager.    All  has  been 


done  for  the  least  deformed  of  the  tragedies  of 
the  Old  English  Drama  that  humanity  could 
do,  enlightened  by  the  Christian  religion;  but 
Nature  has  risen  up  to  vindicate  herself  against 
such  misrepresentations  as  they  afford;  and 
sometimes  finds  it  all  she  can  do  to  stomach 
Shakspeare. 

But  the  monstrosities  we  have  mentioned  are 
not  the  worst  to  be  found  in  the  Old  English 
Drama.  Others  there  are  that,  till  civilized 
Christendom  fall  back  into  barbarous  Heathen- 
dom, must  for  ever  be  unendurable  to  human 
ears,  whether  long  or  short — we  mean  the  ob- 
scenities. That  sin  is  banished  for  ever  from 
our  literature.  The  poet  who  might  dare  to 
commit  it,  would  be  immediately  hooted  out  of 
society,  and  sent  to  roost  in  barns  among  the 
owls.  But  the  Old  English  Drama  is  stuffed 
with  ineffable  pollutions;  and  full  of  passages 
that  the  street-walker  would  be  ashamed  to 
read  in  the  stews.  We  have  not  seen  that 
volume  of  the  Family  Dramatists  which  contains 
Massinger.  Bui  if  made  fit  for  female  read- 
ing, his  plays  must  be  mutilated  and  mangled 
out  of  all  likeness  to  the  original  wholes. 
To  free  them  even  from  the  grossest  impuri- 
ties, without  destroying  iheir  very  life,  is  im- 
possible ;  and  it  would  be  far  better  to  make  a 
selection  of  fine  passages,  after  the  manner  of 
Lamb's  Specimens — but  with  a  severer  eye — 
than  to  attempt  in  vain  to  preserve  their  cha- 
racter as  plays,  and  at  the  same  time  to  expunge 
all  that  is  too  disgusting,  perhaps,  to  be  danger- 
ous to  boys  and  virgins.  Full-grown  men  may 
read  what  they  choose — perhaps  without  suf- 
fering from  it ;  but  the  modesty  of  the  young 
clear  eye  must  not  be  profaned — and  we  can- 
not, for  our  own  pari,  imagine  a  Family  Old 
English  Dramatist. 

And  here  again  bursts  upon  us  the  glory  of 
the  Greek  Drama.  The  Athenians  were  as 
wicked,  as  licentious,  as  polluted,  and  much 
more  so,  we  hope,  than  ever  were  the  English  ; 
but  they  debased  not  with  their  gross  vices 
their  glorious  tragedies.  Nature  in  her  higher 
moods  alone,  and  most  majestic  aspects,  trod 
their  stage.  Buffoons,  and  ribalds,  and  zanies, 
and  "rude  indecent  clowns,"  were  confined  to 
comedies;  and  even  there  they  too  were  ideal- 
ized, and  resembled  not  the  obscene  samples 
that  so  often  sicken  us  in  the  midst  of  "  the  act- 
ing of  a  dreadful  thing"  in  our  old  theatre. 
They  knew  that  "with  other  ministrations, thou, 
O  Nature!"  teachest  thy  handmaid  Art  to 
soothe  the  souls  of  thy  congregated  children — 
congregated  to  behold  her  noble  goings-on,  and 
to  rise  up  and  depart  elevated  by  the  transcen- 
dent pageant.  The  Tragic  muse  was  in  those 
days  a  Priestess — tragedies  were  religious 
ceremonies  ;  for  all  the  ancestral  stories  they 
celebrated  were  under  consecration — the  spirit 
of  the  ages  of  heroes  and  demigods  descended 
over  the  vast  amphitheatre  ;  and  thus  were 
.Eschylus,  and  Sophocles,  and  Euripides,  the 
guardians  of  the  national  character,  which  we 
all  know,  was,  in  spite  of  all  it  suffered  under, 
frir  ever  passionately  enamoured  of  all  the 
forms  of  greatness. 

Forgive  us — spirit  of  Shakspeare !  thai 
seem'st  to  animate  that  high-brow'd  bust — if 
indeed  we   have  offered  any  show  of  irreve- 


INCH-CRUIN. 


91 


rence  to  thy  name  and  nature;  for  now,  in  the 
noiselessness  of  midnight,  to  our  awed  but 
loving  hearts  do  both  appear  divine  !  Forgive 
us — we  beseech  thee — that  on  going  to  bed — 
which  we  are  just  about  to  do — we  may  be  able 
to  compose  ourselves  to  sleep — and  dream  of 
Miranda  and  Imogen,  and  Desdemona  and  Cor- 
delia. Father  revered  of  that  holy  family  !  by 
the  strong  light  in  the  eyes  of  Innocence  we 
beseech  thee  to  forgive  us ! — Ha !  what  old  ghost 
art  thou — clothed  in  the  weeds  of  more  than 
mortal  misery — mad,  mad,  mad — come  and 
gone — was  it  Learl 

We  have  found  then,  it  seems — at  last — the 
object  of  our  search — a  Great  Poem — ay — four 
Great  Poems — Lear — Hamlet — Othello — Mac- 
beth. And  was  the  revealer  of  those  high 
mysteries  in  his  youth  a  deer-stealer  in  the 
parks  of  Warwickshire,  a  linkboy  in  London 
streets  1  And  died  he  before  his  grand  climac- 
teric in  ,a  dimmish  sort  of  a  middle-sized  tene- 
ment in  Stratford-on-Avon,  of  a  surfeit  from 
an  over-dose  of  home-brewed  humming  ale  ] 
Such  is  the  tradition. 

Had  we  a  daughter — an  only  daughter — we 
should  wish  her  to  be  like 

"Heavenly  Una  with  her  niilk-while  lamb." 

In  that  one  line  has  Wordsworth  done  an  un- 
appreciable  service  to  Spenser.  He  has  im- 
proved upon  a  picture  in  the  Fairy  Queen — 
making  "the  beauty  still  more  beauteous,"  by 
a  single  touch  of  a  pencil  dipped  in  moonlight, 
or  in  sunlight  tender  as  Luna's  smiles.  Through 
Spenser's  many  nine-lined  stanzas  the  lovely 
lady  glides  along  her  own  world — and  our  eyes 
follow  in  delight  the  sinless  wanderer.  In 
Wordsworth's  one  single  celestial  line  we  be- 
hold her  neither  in  time  nor  space — an  im- 
mortal omnipresent  idea  at  one  gaze  occupying 
the  soul. 

And  is  not  the  Fairy  Queen  a  Great  Poeml 
Like  the  Excursion,  it  is  at  all  events  a  long 
one — "  slow  to  begin,  and  never  ending."  That 


fire  was  a  fortunate  one  in  which  so  many 
books  of  it  were  burnt.  If  no  such  fortunate 
fire  ever  took  place,  then  let  us  trust  that  the 
moths  drillingly  devoured  the  manuscript — and 
that  'lis  all  safe.  Purgatorial  pains — unless 
indeed  they  should  prove  eternal — are  insuffi- 
cient punishment  for  the  impious  man  who 
invented  Allegory.  If  you  have  got  any  thing 
to  say,  sir,  out  with  it — in  one  or  other  of  the 
many  forms  of  speech  employed  naturally  by 
creatures  to  whom  God  has  given  the  gift  of 
"discourse  of  reason."  But  beware  of  mis- 
spending your  life  in  perversely  attempting  to 
make  shadow  substance,  and  substance  shadow. 
Wonderful  analogies  there  are  among  all 
created  things,  material  and  immaterial — and 
millions  so  fine  that  Poets  alone  discern  them — 
and  sometimes  succeed  in  showing  them  in 
words.  Most  spiritual  region  of  poetry — and 
to  be  visited  at  rare  times  and  seasons — nor  all 
life-long  ought  bard  there  to  abide.  For  a  while 
let  the  veil  of  Allegory  be  drawn  before  the 
face  of  Truth,  that  the  light  of  its  beauty  may 
shine  through  it  with  a  softened  charm — dim 
and  drear — like  the  moon  gradually  obscuring 
in  its  own  halo  on  a  dewy  night.  Such  air- 
woven  veil  of  Allegory  is  no  human  invention. 
The  soul  brought  it  with  her  when 

"Trailing  clouds  of  clory  she  did  come 
From  heaven,  which  is  her  home." 

Sometimes,  now  and  then,  in  moods  strange 
and  high — obey  the  bidding  of  the  soul — and 
allegorize;  but  live  not  all  life-long  in  an  Alle- 
gory— even  as  Spenser  did — Spenser  the  di- 
vine ;  for  with  all  his  heavenly  genius — and 
brighter  visions  never  met  mortal  eyes  than 
his — what  is  he  but  a  "dreamer  among  men," 
and  what  may  save  that  wondrous  poem  from 
the  doom  of  oblivion  ] 

To  this  conclusion  must  we  come  at  last — 
that  in  the  English  language  there  is  but 
one  Great  Poem.  What!  Not  Lear,  Hamlet, 
Othello.  Macbeth  1     Paradise  Lost. 


INCH-CRUIK 


Oh  !  for  the  plumes  and  pinions  of  the  poised 
Eagle,  that  we  might  now  hang  over  Loch  Lo- 
mond and  all  her  isles !  From  what  point  of  the 
compass  would  we  come  on  our  rushing  vans'! 
Up  from  Leven-banks,  or  down  from  Glenfal- 
loch,  or  over  tlfe  hill  of  Luss,  or  down  to  Row- 
ardennan ;  and  then  up  and  away,  as  the  chance 
currents  in  the  sky  might  lead,  with  the  Glory 
of  Scotland,  blue,  bright,  and  breaking  into 
foam,  thousands  on  thousands  of  feet  below, 
with  every  Island  distinct  in  the  peculiar  beauty 
of  its  own  youthful  or  ancient  woods'!  For 
remember,  that  with  the  eagle's  wing  we  must 
also  iiave  the  eagle's  eye;  and  all  the  while 
our  own  soul  to  look  with  such  lens  and  such 
iris,  and  with  its  own  endless  visions  to  invest 
the  pinnacles  of  all  the  far-down  ruins  of  church 


or  castle,  encompassed  with  the  umbrage  of 
undying  oaks. 

We  should  as  soon  think  of  penning  a  critique 
on  Milton's  Paradise  Lost  as  on  Loch  Lomond. 
People  there  are  in  the  world,  doubtless,  who 
think  them  both  too  long;  but  to  our  minds, 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other  exceeds  the  due 
measure  by  a  leaf  or  a  league.  You  may,  if  it 
so  pleaseth  you,  ihiak  it,  in  a  mist,  a  Mediterra- 
nean sea.  For  then  you  behold  many  miles  of 
tumbling  waves,  with  no  land  beyond  ;  and 
were  a  ship  to  rise  up  in  full  sail,  she  would 
seem  voyaging  on  to  some  distant  shore.  Or 
you  may  look  on  it  as  a  great  arm  only  of  the 
ocean,  stretched  out  into  the  mountainous  main- 
land. Or  say,  rather,  some  river  of  the  first 
order,  that  shows  to  the  suu  Islands  never 


92 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


ceasing  to  adorn  his  course  for  a  thousand 
leagues,  in  another  day  about  to  be  lost  in  the 
donainion  of  the  sea.  Or  rather  look  on  it  as 
it  is,  as  Loch  Lomond,  the  Loch  of  a  hundred 
Isles — of  shores  laden  with  all  kinds  of  beauty, 
Ihroughout  the  infinite  succession  of  bays  and 
harbours — huts  and  houses  sprinkled  over  the 
sides  of  its  green  hills,  that  ever  and  anon  send 
up  a  wider  smoke  from  villages  clustering 
round  the  church-tower  beneath  the  wooded 
rocks — halls  half-hidden  in  groves,  for  centu- 
ries the  residence  of  families  proud  of  their 
Gaelic  blood — forests  that,  however  wide  be  the 
fall  beneath  the  axe  when  their  hour  is  come, 
yet,  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  go  circling  round 
the  mountain's  base,  inhabited  by  the  roe  and 
the  red-deer; — but  we  have  got  into  a  sentence 
that  threatens  to  be  without  end — a  dim,  dreary, 
sentence,  in  the  middle  of  which  the  very  writer 
himself  gels  afraid  of  ghosts,  and  fervently 
prays  for  the  period  when  he  shall  be  again 
chatting  with  the  reader  on  a  shady  seat,  under 
his  own  paragraph  and  his  own  pear-tree. 

Oh!  for  our  admirable  friend  Mr.  Smith  of 
Jordanhill's  matchless  cutter,  to  glide  through 
among   the   glittering   archipelago!      But  we 
must  be  contented  with  a  somewhat  clumsy 
four-oared  barge,  wide  and  deep  enough  for  a 
cattle  ferry-boat.  This  morning's  sunrise  found 
us  at  the  mouth  of  the  Goblin's  Cave  on  Loch 
Katrine,  and  among  Lomond's  lovely  isles  shall 
sunset  leave  us  among  the  last  glimmer  of  the 
softened  gold.     To  which  of  all  those  lovely 
isles  shall  we  drift  before  the  wind  on  the  small 
heaving  and  breaking  waves  ?  To  Inch-Murrin, 
where  the  fallow-deer  repose — or  to  the  yew- 
shaded  Inch-Cailiach,  the   cemetery  of  Clan- 
Alpin — the  Holy  Isle  of  Nunsi     One  hushing 
afternoon  hour  may  yet  be  ours  on  the  waters — 
another  of   the  slowly-walking  twilight — that 
time  which  the  gazing  spirit  is  too  wrapt  to 
measure,   while   "sinks   the   Day-star  in   the 
ocean's  bed" — and  so  on  to  midnight,  the  reign 
of  silence  and  shadow,  (he  resplendent  Diana 
with  her  hair-halo,  and  all   her  star-nymphs, 
rejoicing  round  their  Queen.     Let  the  names 
of  all  objects  be  forgotten — and  imagination 
roam  over  the  works  of  nature,  as  if  they  lay 
in  their  primeval  majesty,  without  one  trace  of 
man's   dominion.      Slow-sailing    Heron,   that 
cloud-like  seekest  thy  nest  on  yonder  lofty  mass 
of  pines — to  us  thy  flight  seems  the  very  symbol 
of  a  long  lone  life  of  peace.     As  thou  foldesl 
thy  wide  wings  on  the  topmost  bough,  beneath 
thee  tower  the  unregarded  Ruins,  where  many 
generations  sleep.     Onwards  thou  floatest  like 
a  dream,  nor  changest  thy  gradually  descend- 
ing course  for  the  Eagle,  that,  far  above  thy 
line  of  travel,  comes  rushing  unwearied  from 
his  prey  in  distant  Isles  of  the  sea.     The  Os- 
prey!    off— off— to  Inch-Loning— or  the  dark 
cliffs  of  Glenfalloch,  many  leagues  away,  which 
he  will  reach  almost  like  a  thought!     Close 
your  eyes  but  for  a  moment — and  when  you 
look  again,  where  is  the  Cloud-Cleaver  now  1 
Gone  in  the  sunshine,  and  haply  seated  in  his 
eyrie  on  Ben-Lomond's  head. 

But  amidst  all  this  splendour  and  magnifi- 
cence, our  eyes  are  drawn  against  our  will, 
and  by  a  sort  of  sad  fascination  which  we 
cannot  resist,  along  the  glittering  and  dancing 


waves,  towards  the  melancholy  shores  of  Inch- 
Cruin,  the  Island  of  the  Afflicted.  Beautifu. 
is  it  by  nature,  with  its  bays,  and  fields,  and 
woods,  as  any  isle  that  sees  its  shadow  in  the 
deeps  ;  but  human  sorrows  have  steeped  it  in 
eternal  gloom,  and  terribly  is  it  haunted  to  our 
imagination.  Here  no  woodman's  hut  peeps 
from  the  glade — here  are  not  seen  the  branch- 
ing antlers  of  the  deer  moving  among  the 
boughs  that  stir  not — no  place  of  peace  is  this 
where  the  world-wearied  hermit  sits  penitent 
in  his  cell,  and  prepares  his  soul  for  Heaven. 
Its  inhabitants  are  a  woful  people,  and  all  its 
various  charms  are  hidden  from  their  eyes,  or 
seen  in  ghastly  transfiguration  ;  for  here,  be- 
neath the  yew-tree's  shade,  sit  moping,  or 
roam  about  with  rueful  lamentation,  the  soul- 
distracted  and  the  insane!  Ay — these  sweet 
and  pleasant  murmurs  break  round  a  Lunatic 
Asylum  !  And  the  shadows  that  are  now  and 
then  seen  among  the  umbrage  are  laughing 
or  weeping  in  the  eclipse  of  reason,  and  may 
never  know  again  aught  of  the  real  character 
of  this  world,  to  which,  exiled  as  they  are 
from  it,  they  are  yet  bound  by  the  ties  of  a 
common  nature  that,  though  sorely  deranged, 
are  not  wholly  broken,  and  still  separate  them 
by  an  awful  depth  of  darkness  from  the  beasts 
that  perish. 

Thither,  love,  yielding  reluctantly  at  last  to 
despair,  has  consented  that  the  object  on  which 
all  its  wise  solicitudes  had  for  years  been  un- 
availably  bestowed  both  night  and  day,  should 
be  rowed  over,  perhaps  at  midnight,  and  when 
asleep,  and  left  there  with  beings  like  itself, 
all  dimly  conscious  of  their  doom.  To  many 
such  the  change  may  often  bring  little  or  no 
heed — for  outward  things  may  have  ceased  to 
impress,  and  they  may  be  living  in  their  own 
rueful  world,  different  from  all  that  we  hear  or 
behold.  To  some  it  may  seem  that  they  have 
been  spirited  away  to  another  state  of  exist* 
ence — beautiful,  indeed,  and  fair  to  see,  with 
all  those  lovely  trees  and  shadows  of  trees; 
but  still  a  miserable,  a  most  miserable  place, 
without  one  face  they  ever  saw  before,  and 
haunted  by  glaring  eyes  that  shoot  forth  fear, 
suspicion,  and  hatred.  Others,  again,  there 
arc,  who  know  well  the  misty  head  of  Ben- 
Lomond,  which,  with  joyful  pleasure-parties 
set  free  from  the  city,  they  had  in  other  years 
exultinglj'  scaled,  and  looked  down,  perhaps, 
in  a  solemn  pause  of  their  youthful  ecstasy, 
on  the  far-off  and  melancholy  Inch-Cruin ! 
Thankful  are  they  fur  such  a  haven  at  last — 
fow-they  are  remote  from  the  disturbance  of  the 
incomprehensible  life  that  bewildered  them, 
and  from  the  pity  of  familiar  faces  that  was 
more  than  could  be  borne. 

So  let  us  float  upon  our  oars  behind  the 
shadow  of  this  rock,  nor  approach  nearer  the 
sacred  retreat  of  misery.  Let  us  not  gaze  too 
intently  into  the  glades,  for  we  might  see  some 
figure  there  who  wished  to  be  seen  nevermore, 
and  recognise  in  the  hurrying  shadow  the 
living  remains  of  a  friend.  How  profound  the 
hush  !  No  sigh — no  groan — no  shriek — no 
voice — no  tossing  of  arms — no  restless  chaf- 
ing of  feet!  God  in  mercy  has  for  a  while 
calmed  the  congregation  of  the  afflicted,  and 
the  Isle  is  overspread  with  a  sweet  Sabbath- 


INCH-CRUIN. 


93 


silence.  What  medicine  for  them  like  the 
brealh  of  heaven — the  dew — the  sunshine — 
and  the  murmur  of  the  wave !  Nature  her- 
self is  their  kind  physician,  and  sometimes 
not  unfrequently  brings  them  by  her  holy  skill 
back  to  the  world  of  clear  intelligence  and 
serene  affection.  They  listen  calmly  to  the 
blessed  sound  of  the  oar  that  brings  a  visit  of 
friends — to  sojourn  with  them  for  a  day — or 
to  take  them  away  to  another  retirement, 
■where  they,  in  restored  reason,  may  sit  around 
the  board,  nor  fear  to  meditate  during  the  raid- 
night  watches  on  the  dream,  which,  although 
dispelled,  may  in  all  its  ghaslliness  return. 
There  was  a  glorious  burst  of  sunshine ! 
And  of  all  the  Lomond  Isles,  what  one  rises 
up  in  the  sudden  illumination  so  bright  as 
Inch-Cruin  1 

Methinks  we  see  sifting  in  his  narrow  and 
low-roofed  cell,  careless  of  food,  dress,  sleep, 
or  shelter  alike,  him  who  in  the  opulent  mart 
of  commerce  was  one  of  the  most  opulent,  and 
devoted  heart  and  soul  to  show  and  magnifi- 
cence. His  house  was  like  a  palace  with  its 
pictured  and  mirror'd  walls,  and  the  nights 
wore  away  to  dance,  revelry,  and  song.  For- 
tune poured  riches  at  his  feet,  which  he  had 
only  to  gather  up;  and  every  enterprise  in 
which  be  took  part,  prospered  beyond  the 
reach  of  imagination.  But  all  at  once — as 
if  lightning  had  struck  the  dome  of  his  pros- 
perity, and  earthquake  let  down  its  founda- 
tions, it  sank,  crackled,  and  disappeared — and 
the  man  of  a  million  was  a  houseless,  infa- 
mous, and  bankrupt  beggar-  In  one  day  his 
proud  face  changed  into  the  ghastly  smiling 
of  an  idiot — he  dragged  his  limbs  in  paralysis 
— and  slavered  out  unmeaning  words  foreign 
to  all  the  pursuits  in  which  his  active  intellect 
had  for  many  years  been  plunged.  All  his 
relations — to  whom  it  was  known  he  had  ne- 
ver shown  kindness — were  persons  in  humble 
condition.  Ruined  creditors  we  do  not  expect 
to  be  very  pitiful,  and  people  asked  what  was 
to  become  of  him  till  he  died.  A  poor  crea- 
ture, whom  he  had  seduced  and  abandoned  to 
want,  but  who  had  succeeded  to  a  small  pro- 
perty on  the  death  of  a  distant  relation,  re- 
membered her  first,  her  only  love,  when  all 
the  rest  of  the  world  were  willing  to  forget 
him;  and  she  it  was  who  had  him  conveyed 
thither,  herself  sitting  in  the  boat  with  her 
arm  round  the  unconscious  idiot,  who  now 
vegetates  on  the  charity  of  her  whom  he  be- 
trayed. For  fifteen  years  he  has  continued  to 
exist  in  the  same  state,  and  you  may  pro- 
nounce his  name  on  the  busy  Exchange  of 
the  city  where  he  flourished  and  fell,  and 
haply  the  person  you  speak  to  shall  have  en- 
tirely forgotten  it. 

The  evils  genius  sometimes  brings  to  its 
possessor  have  often  been  said  and  sung,  per- 
haps with  exaggerations,  but  not  alwaj-s  with- 
out truth.  It  is  found  frequently  apart  from 
prudence  and  principle;  and  in  a  world  con- 
stituted like  ours,  how  can  it  fail  to  reap  a 
harvest  of  misery  or  death]  A  fine  genius, 
and  even  a  high,  had  been  bestowed  on  One 
who  is 'now  an  inmate  of  that  cottage-cell, 
peering  between  these  two  rocks.  At  College, 
he  outstripped  all  his   compeers  by  powers 


equally  versatile  and  profound — the  first  both 
in  intellect  and  in  imagination.  He  was  a 
poor  man's  son — the  only  son  of  a  working 
carpenter — and  his  father  intended  him  for  the 
church.  But  the  youth  soon  felt  that  to  him 
the  trammels  of  a  strict  faith  would  be  un- 
bearable, and  he  lived  on  from  year  to  year, 
uncertain  what  profession  to  choose.  Mean- 
while his  friends,  all  inferior  to  him  in  talents 
and  acquirements,  followed  the  plain,  open, 
and  beaten  path,  that  leads  sooner  or  later  to 
respectability  and  independence.  He  was  left 
alone  in  his  genius,  useless,  although  admired 
— while  those  who  had  looked  in  high  hopes 
on  his  early  career,  began  to  have  their  fears 
that  they  might  never  be  realized.  His  first 
attempts  to  attract  the  notice  of  the  public, 
although  not  absolute  failures — for  some  of  his 
compositions,  both  in  prose  and  verse,  were 
indeed  beautiful — were  not  triumphantly  suc- 
cessful, and  he  began  to  taste  the  bitterness  of 
disappointed  ambition.  His  wit  and  colloquial 
talents  carried  him  into  the  society  of  the  dis- 
sipated and  the  licentious;  and  before  he  was 
aware  of  the  fact,  he  had  got  the  character  of 
all  others  the  most  humiliating — that  of  a  man 
who  knew  not  how  to  estimate  his  own  worth, 
nor  to  preserve  it  from  pollution.  He  found 
himself  silently  and  gradually  excluded  from 
the  higher  circle  which  he  had  once  adorned, 
and  sunk  inextricably  into  a  lower  grade  of 
social  life.  His  whole  habits  became  loose 
and  irregular;  his  studies  were  pursued  but 
by  fits  and  starts ;  his  knowledge,  instead  of 
keeping  pace  with  that  of  the  times,  became 
clouded  and  obscure,  and  even  diminished; 
his  dre|ss  was  meaner;  his  manners  hurried, 
and  reckless,  and  wild,  and  ere  long  he  became 
a  slave  to  drunkenness,  and  then  to  every  low 
and  degrading  vice. 

His  father  died,  it  was  said,  of  a  broken  heart 
— for  to  him  his  son  had  been  all  in  all,  and 
the  unhappy  youth  felt  that  the  death  lay  at  his 
door.  At  last,  shunned  by  most — tolerated  but 
by  a  few  for  the  sake  of  other  times — domiciled 
in  the  haunts  of  infamy — loaded  with  a  heap 
of  paltry  debts,  and  pursued  by  the  hounds  of 
the  law,  the  fear  of  a  prison  drove  him  mad, 
and  his  whole  mind  was  utterly  and  hopelessly 
overthrown.  A  few  of  the  friends  of  his  boy- 
hood raised  a  subscription  in  his  behoof — and 
within  the  gloom  of  these  woods  he  has  been 
shrouded  for  many  years,  but  not  un visited 
once  or  twice  a  summer  by  some  one,  who 
knew,  lovp'',  and  admired  him  in  the  morning 
of  that  genius  that  long  before  its  meridian 
brightness  had  been  so  fatally  eclipsed. 

And  can  it  be  in  cold  and  unimpassioned 
words  like  these  that  we  thus  speak  of  Thee 
and  thy  doom,  thou  Soul  of  fire,  and  once  the 
brightest  of  the  free,  privileged  by  nature  to 
walk  along  the  mountain-ranges,  and  mix  ^heir 
spirits  with  the  stars  !  Can  it  be  that  all  thy 
glorious  aspirations,  by  thyself  forgotten,  have 
no  dwelling-place  in  the  memory  of  one  who 
loved  thee  so  well,  and  had  his  deepest  affection 
so  profoundly  returned !  Thine  was  a  heart 
once  tremblingly  alive  to  all  the  noblest  and 
finest  sympathies  of  our  nature,  and  the  hum- 
blest human  sensibilities  became  beautiful 
when  tinged  by  the  light  of  thy  imagination. 


94 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


Thy  genius  invested  the  most  ordinary  objects 
with  a  charm  not  their  own ;  and  the  vision  it 
created  thy  lips  were  eloquent  to  disclose. 
What  although  thy  poor  old  father  died,  be- 
cause by  thy  hand  all  his  hopes  were  shivered, 
and  for  thy  sake  poverty  stripped  even  the 
coverlet  from  his  dying-bed — yet  we  feel  as  if 
some  dreadful  destiny,  rather  than  thy  own 
crime,  blinded  thee  to  his  fast  decay,  and 
closed  thine  ears  in  deafness  to  his  beseeching 
prayer.  Oh  !  charge  not  to  creatures  such  as 
we  all  the  fearful  consequences  of  our  mis- 
conduct and  evil  ways  !  We  break  hearts  we 
would  die  to  heal — and  hurry  on  towards  the 
grave  those  whom  to  save  we  would  leap  into 
the  devouring  fire.  Many  wondered  in  their 
anger  that  thou  couldst  be  so  callous  to  the 
old  man's  grief — and  couldst  walk  tearless  at 
his  codin.  The  very  night  of  the  day  he  was 
buried  thou  wert  among  thy  wild  companions, 
in  a  house  of  infamy,  close  to  the  wall  of  the 
churchyard.  Was  not  that  enough  to  tell  us 
all  that  disease  was  in  thy  brain,  and  that 
reason,  struggling  with  insanity,  had  changed 
sorrow  to  despair.  But  perfect  forgiveness — 
forgiveness  made  tender  by  profoundest  pity — 
was  finally  extended  to  thee  by  all  thy  friends 
— frail  and  erring  like  thyself  in  many  things, 
although  not  so  fatally  misled  and  lost,  because 
in  the  mystery  of  Providence  not  so  irrcsisiiblv 
tried.  It  seemed  as  if  thou  hadst  offended  the 
Guardian  Genius,  who,  according  to  the  old 
philosophy  which  thou  knewest  so  well,  is 
given  to  every  human  being  at  his  birth;  and 
that  then  the  angel  left  thy  side,  and  Satan 
strove  to  drag  thee  to  perdition.  And  hath 
any  peace  come  to  thee — a  youth  no  more — 
but  in  what  might  have  been  the  prime  of  man- 
hood, bent  down,  they  say,  to  the  ground,  with 
a  head  all  floating  with  silver  hairs — hath  any 
peace  come  to  thy  distracted  soul  in  these 
woods,  over  which  there  now  seems  again  to 
brood  a  holy  horror  1 — Yes — thy  fine  dark  eyes 
are  not  wholly  without  intelligence  as  they 
look  on  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars ;  although  all 
their  courses  seem  now  confused  to  thy  imagi- 
nation, once  regular  and  ordered  in  their  mag- 
nificence before  that  intellect  which  science 
claimed  as  her  own.  The  harmonies  of  nature 
are  not  all  lost  on  thy  ear,  poured  forth  through- 
out all  seasons,  over  the  world  of  sound  and 
sight.  Glimpses  of  beauty  startle  thee  as  thou 
■wanderest  along  the  shores  of  thy  prison-isle  ; 
and  that  fine  poetical  genius,  not  yet  ex- 
tinguished altogether,  although  faiul  and  flick- 
ering, gives  vent  to  something  like  snatches 
of  songs,  and  broken  elegies,  that  seem  to 
wail  over  the  ruins  of  thy  own  soul !  Such 
peace  as  ever  visits  them  afflicted  as  thou  art, 
be  with  thee  in  cell  or  on  shore ;  nor  lost  to 
Heaven  will  be  the  wild  meanings  of— to  us — 
thy  unintelligible  prayers ! 

But  hark  to  the  spirit-stirring  voice  of  the 
bugle  scaling  the  sky,  and  leaping  up  and  down 
in  echoes  among  the  distant  mountains!  Such 
a  strain  animates  the  voltigeur,  skirmishing  in 
front  of  the  line  of  battle,  or  sending  flashes  of 
sudden  death  from  the  woods.  Alas  !  for  him 
who  now  deludes  his  yet  high  heart  with  a  few 
notes  of  the  music  that  so  often  was  accompa- 
nied by  his  sword  waving  on  to  glory.     Unap- 


palled  was  he  ever  in  the  whizzing  and  hissing 
fire — nor  did  his  bold  broad  breast  ever  shrink 
from  the  bayonet,  that  with  the  finished  fencer's 
art  he  has  often  turned  aside  when  red  with 
death.  In  many  of  the  pitched  battles  of  the 
Spanish  campaigns  his  plume  was  conspicuous 
over  the  dark  green  lines,  that,  breaking  asun- 
der in  fragments  like  those  of  the  flowing  sea, 
only  to  re-advance  over  the  bloody  fields, 
cleared  the  ground  that  was  to  be  debated  be- 
tween the  great  armaments.  Yet  in  all  such 
desperate  service  he  never  received  one  single 
wound.  But  on  a  mid-day  march,  as  he  was 
gaily  singing  a  love-song,  the  sun  smote  him 
to  the  very  brain,  and  from  that  moment  his 
right  hand  grasped  the  sword  no  more. 

Not  on  the  face  of  all  the  earth — or  of  all  the 
sea — is  there  a  spot  of  profounder  peace  than 
that  isle  that  has  long  been  his  abode.  But  to 
him  all  the  scene  is  alive  with  the  pomp  of 
war.  Every  far-oflfprecipice  is  a  fort,  that  has 
its  own  Spanish  name — and  the  cloud  above 
seems  to  his  eyes  the  tricolor,  or  the  flag  of  his 
own  victorious  country.  War,  that  dread  game 
that  nations  play  at,  is  now  to  the  poor  insane 
soldier  a  mere  child's  pastime,  from  which 
sometimes  he  himself  will  turn  with  a  sigh  or 
a  smile.  For  sense  assails  him  in  his  delirium, 
for  a  moment  and  no  more  ;  and  he  feels  that 
he  is  far  away,  and  for  ever,  from  all  his  com- 
panions in  glory,  in  an  asylum  that  must  be 
left  but  for  the  grave!  Perhaps  in  such  mo- 
ments he  may  have  rememhered  the  night, 
when  at  Badajos  he  led  the  forlorn  hope  ;  but 
even  forlorn  hope  now  hath  he  none,  and  he 
sinks  away  back  into  his  delusions,  at  which 
even  his  brother  sulferers  smile — so  foolish 
does  the  restless  campaigner  seem  to  these  men 
of  peace! 

Lo!  a  white  ghost-like  figure.slowly  issuing 
from  the  trees,  and  silting  herself  down  on  a 
stone,  with  face  fixed  on  the  waters  !  Now 
she  is  so  perfectly  still,  that  had  we  not  seen 
her  motion  thither,  she  and  the  rock  would 
have  seemed  but  one!  Somewhat  fantastically 
dressed,  even  in  her  apparent  despair.  Were 
we  close  to  her,  we  should  see  a  face  yet  beau- 
tiful, beneath  hair  white  as  snow.  Her  voice 
too,  but  seldom  heard,  is  still  sweet  and  low  ; 
and  sometimes,  when  all  are  asleep,  or  at  least 
silent,  she  begins  at  midnight  to  sing  !  She  yet 
touches  the  guitar — an  instrument  in  fashion 
in  Scotland  when  she  led  the  fashion — with 
infinite  grace  and  delicacy — and  the  songs  she 
loves  best  are  those  in  a  foreign  tongue.  For 
more  than  thirty  years  hath  the  unfortunate 
lady  come  to  the  water's  edge  daily,  and  hour 
after  hour  continue  to  sit  motionless  on  that 
self-same  stone,  looking  down  into  the  loch. 
Her  stor>'  is  now  almost  like  a  dim  tradition 
from  other  ages,  and  the  history  of  those  who 
come  here  often  fades  away  into  nothing. 
Ever)-where  else  they  are  forgotten — here 
there  are  none  who  can  remember.  Who  once 
so  beautiful  as  the  "  Fair  Portuguese  ?"  It 
was  said  at  that  time  that  she  was  a  Nun — bat 
the  sacred  veil  was  drawn  aside  by  the  hand 
of  love,  and  she  came  to  Scotland  with  her  de- 
liverer !  Yes,  her  deliverer  !  He  delivered  her 
from  the  gloom — often  the  peaceful  glo'om  that 
hovers  round  the  altar  of  Superstition — and 


A  DAY  AT  WINDERMERE. 


95 


after  a  few  years  of  love  and  life  and  joy — she 
sat  where  you  now  see  her  sitting,  and  the 
world  she  had  adorned  moved  on  in  brightness 
and  in  music  as  before  !  Since  there  has  to  her 
been  so  much.suffering — was  there  on  her  part 
no  sin  1  No — all  believed  her  to  be  guiltless, 
except  one,  whose  jealousy  would  have  seen 
falsehood  lurking  in  an  angel's  eyes;  but  she 
was  utterly  deserted  ;  and  being  in  a  strange 
country,  worse  than  an  orphan,  her  mind  gave 
way  ;  for  say  not — oh  say  not — that  innocence 
can  always  stand  against  shame  and  despair! 
The  hymns  she  sings  at  midnight  are  hymns  to 
the  Virgin  ;  but  all  her  songs  are  songs  about 
lov,e  and  chivalry,  and  knights  that  went  cru- 
sading to  the  Holy  Land.  He  who  brought  her 
from  another  sanctuary  into  the  one  now  before 
us,  has  been  dead  many  3'ears.  He  perished 
in  shipwreck — and  'tis  thought  that  she  sits 
there  gazing  down  into  the  loch,  as  on  the 
place  where  he  sank  or  was  buried ;  for  when 
told  that  he  was  drowned,  she  shrieked,  and 
made  the  sign  of  the  cross — and  since  that  long- 
ago  day  that  stone  has  in  all  weathers  been 
her  constant  seat 

Away  we  go  westwards — like  fire-worship- 
pers devoutly  gazing  on  the  setting  sun.  And 
another  isle  seems  to  shoot  across  our  path, 
separated  suddenly,  as  if  by  magic,  from  the 
mainland.  How  beautiful,  with  its  many  cres- 
cents, the  low-lying  shores,  carrying  here  and 
there  a  single  tree  quite  into  the  water,  and 
with  verdant  shallows  guarding  the  lonely  se- 
clusion even  from  the  keel  of  canoe !  Round 
and  round  we  row,  but  not  a  single  landing 
place.  Shall  we  take  each  of  us  a  fair  burden 
in  his  arms,  and  bear  it  to  that  knoll,  whisper- 
ing and  quivering  through  the  twilight  with  a 
few  birches  whose  stems  glitter  like  silver  pil- 
lars in  the  shade  I  No^let  us  not  disturb  the 
silent  people,  now  donning  their  green  array 
for  nightly  revelries.  It  is  the  "  Isle  of  Fai- 
ries," and  on  that  knoll  hath  the  fishermen 
often  seen  their  Queen  sitting  on  a  throne,  sur- 
rounded by  myriads  of  creatures  no  taller  than 
hare-bells;  one  splash  of  the  oar — and  all  is 
vanished.  There,  it  is  said,  lives  among  the 
Folk  of  Peace,  the  fair  child  who,  many  years 
ago,  disappeared  from  her  parents'  shieling  at 


Inversnayde,  and  whom  they  vainly  wept  over 
as  dead.  One  evening  she  had  floated  away 
by  herself  in  a  small  boat — while  her  parents 
heard,  without  fear,  the  clang — duller  and  dull- 
er— of  the  oars,  no  longer  visible  in  the  distant- 
moonshine.  In  an  hour  the  returning  vessel 
touched  the  beach — but  no  child  was  to  be 
seen — and  they  listened  in  vain  for  the  music 
of  the  happy  creature's  songs.  For  weeks  the 
loch  rolled  and  roared  like  the  sea — nor  was 
the  body  found  any  where  lying  on  the  shore. 
Long,  long  afterwards,  some  little  white  bones 
were  .interred  in  Christian  burial,  for  the  pa- 
rents believed  them  to  be  the  remains  of  their 
child — all  that  had  been  left  by  the  bill  of  the 
raven.  But  not  so  thought  many  dwellers 
along  the  mountain-shores — for  had  not  her 
very  voice  been  often  heard  by  the  shepherds, 
when  the  unseen  flight  of  Fairies  sailed  singing 
along  up  the  solitary  Glenfalloch,  away  over 
the  moors  of  Tynedrum,  and  down  to  the  sweet 
Dalmally,  where  the  shadow  of  Cruachan 
darkens  the  old  ruins  of  melancholy  Kilchurn  1 
The  lost  child's  parents  died  in  their  old  age — 
but  she,  'tis  said,  is.  unchanged  in  shape  and 
features — the  same  fair  thing  she  was  the 
evening  that  she  disappeared,  only  a  shade  of 
sadness  is  on  her  pale  face,  as  if  she  were 
pining  for  the  sound  of  human  voices,  and  the 
gleam  of  the  peat-fire  of  the  shieling.  Ever, 
when  the  Fairy-court  is  seen  for  a  moment  be- 
neath the  glimpses  of  the  moon,  she  is  sitting 
by  the  side  of  the  gracious  Queen.  Words  of 
might  there  are,  that  if  whispered  at  right  sea- 
son, would  yet  recall  her  from  the  shadowy 
world,  to  which  she  has  been  spirited  away; 
but  small  sentinels  stand  at  their  stations  round 
the  isle,  and  at  nearing  of  human  breath,  a 
shrill  warning  is  given  from  sedge  and  water- 
lilly,  and  like  dew-drops  melt  away  the  phan- 
toms, while,  mixed  with  peals  of  little  laughter, 
overhead  is  heard  the  winnowing  of  wings. 
'  For  the  hollow  of  the  earth,  and  the  hollow  of 
!  the  air,  is  their  Invisible  Kingdom;  and  when 
'  they  touch  the  herbage  or  flowers  of  this  earth 
of  ours,  whose  lonely  places  they  love,  then 
only  are  they  revealed  to  human  eyes — at 
all  times  else  to  our  senses  unexistent  as 
dreams ! 


A  DAY  AT  WINDERMERE. 


Old  and  gouty,  we  are  confined  to  our  chair; 
and  occasionally,  during  an  hour  of  rainless 
sunshine,  are  wheeled  by  female  hands  along 
the  gravel-walks  of  our  Policy,  an  unrepining 
and  philosophical  valetudinarian.  Even  the 
Crutch  is  laid  up  in  ordinar}',  and  is  encircled 
with  cobwebs.  A  monstrous  spider  has  there 
set  up  his  rest ;  and  our  still  study  ever  and 
anon  hearkens  to  the  shrill  buzz  of  some  poor 
fly  expiring  between  those  formidable  forceps 
— just  as  so  many  human  ephemerals  have 
breathed  their  last  beneath  the  bite  of  his  in- 


dulgent master.  'Tis  pleasure  to  look  at  Do- 
mitian — so  we  love  to  call  him — sallying  from 
the  centre  against  a  wearied  wasp,  lying,  like 
a  silk  worm,  circumvoluted  in  the  inextricable 
toils,  and  then  seizing  the  sinner  by  the  nape 
of  the  neck,  like  Christopher  with  a  Cockney, 
to  see  the  emperor  haul  him  away  into  th«« 
charnel-house.  But  we  have  often  less  savage 
recreations — such  as  watchmg  our  bee-hives 
when  about  to  send  forth  coknies — feeding  our 
pigeons,  a  purple  people  that  dazzle  the  daylighl 
— gathering  roses  as   they  choke  our  smal 


96 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


chariot-wheels  with  their  golden  orbs^-eating 
grapes  out  of  vine-leaf-draperied  baskets, 
beautifying  beneath  the  gentle  fingers  of  the 
Gentle  into  fairy  network  graceful  as  the  gos- 
samer— drinking  elder-flower  frontiniac  from 
invisible  glasses,  so  transparent  in  its  yellow- 
ness seems  the  liquid  radiance — at  one  mo- 
ment eyeing  a  page  of  Paradise  Lost,  and  at 
another  of  Paradise  Regained ;  for  what  else 
is  the  face  of  her  who  often  visiteth  our  Eden, 
and  whose  coming  and  whose  going  is  ever 
like  a  heavenly  dream.  Then  laying  back 
our  head  upon  the  cushion  of  our  triumphal 
car,  and  with  half-shut  eyes,  subsiding  slowly 
into  haunted  sleep  or  slumber,  with  our  fine 
features  up  to  heaven,  a  saint-like  image, 
such  as  Raphael  loved  to  paint,  or  Flaxman 
to  embue  with  the  soul  of  stillness  in  the  life- 
hushed  marble.  Such,  dearest  reader,  are 
some  of  our  pastimes — and  so  do  we  contrive 
to  close  our  ears  to  the  sound  of  the  scythe  of 
Saturn,  ceaselessly  sweeping  over  the  earth,  and 
leaving,  at  every  stride  of  the  mower,  a  swaihe 
more  rueful  than  ever,  after  a  night  of  ship  wreck, 
did  strew  with  ghastliness  a  lee  sea-shore ! 

Thus  do  we  make  a  virtue  of  necessity — 
and  thus  contentment  wreathes  with  silk  and 
velvet  the  prisoner's  chains.  Once  were  we — 
long,  long  ago — restless  as  a  sunbeam  on  the 
restless  wave — rapid  as  a  river  that  seems  en- 
raged with  all  impediments,  but  all  the  while 
in  passionate  love 
"Doth  make  sweet  music  with  th'  cnamellM  stones," — 

Strong  as  a  steed  let  loose  from  Arab's  tent  in 
the  oasis  to  slake  his  thirst  at  the  desert  well — 
fierce  in  our  harmless  joy  as  a  red-deer  belling 
on  the  hills — tameless  as  the  eagle  sporting  in 
the  storm — gay  as  the  "  dolphin  on  a  tropic 
sea" — ''mad  as  young  bulls" — and  wild  as  a 
whole  wilderness  of  adolescent  lions.  But  now 
^alas !  and  alack-a-day !  the  sunbeam  is  but 
a  patch  of  sober  verdure — the  river  is  changed 
into  a  canal — the  "  desert-born"  is  foundered — 
the  red-deer  is  slow  as  an  old  ram — the  eagle 
has  forsook  his  clitTand  his  clouds,  and  hops 
among  the  gooseberry  bushes — the  dolphin  has 
degenerated  into  a  land  tortoise — witlu-ut  dan- 
ger now  might  a  very  child  take  the  hull  by  the 
horns — and  though  soiueihing  of  a  lion  still, 
our  roar  is  like  that  of  the  nightingale,  "  most 
musical,  most  melancholy" — and,  as  we  attempt 
to  shake  our  mane,  your  grandmother — fair  pe- 
ruser— cannot  choose  but  weep. 

It  speaks  folios  in  favourof  our  philanthropy, 
to  know  that,  in  our  own  imprisonment,  we 
love  to  see  all  life  free  as  air.  Would  that  by 
a  word  of  ours  we  could  clothe  all  human 
shoulders  with  wings  !  would  that  by  *wurd 
of  ours  we  could  plume  all  human  spirits 
with  thoughts  strong  as  the  eagle's  pinions, 
that  they  might  winnow  their  way  into  the 
empyrean  !  Tories  !  Yes  !  we  are  Tories. 
Our  faith  is  in  the  Divine  right  of  kings — but 
easy,  my  boys,  easy — all  free  men  are  kings, 
and  they  hold  their  empire  from  heaven.  That 
is  our  political — philosophical — moral — reli- 
gious creed.  In  ils  spirit  we  have  lived — 
and  in  ils  spirit  we  hope  to  die — not  on  the 
.scafRdd  like  Sidney — no — no — no — not  by 
any  manner  of  means   Fike  Sidney   on   the 


scafl^old — but  like  ourselves,  on  a  hair-mattress 
above  a  feather-bed,  our  head  decently  sunk  in 
three  pillows  and  one  bolster,  and  our  frame 
stretched  out  unagitatedly  beneath  a  white 
counterpane.  But  meanwhile — though  almost 
as  unlocomotive  as  the  dead  in  body  -there  is 
perpetual  motion  in  our  minds.  Sleep  is  one 
thing,  and  stagnation  is  another — as  is  well 
known  to  all  eyes  that  have  ever  seen,  by 
moonlight  and  midnight,  the  face  of  Christo- 
pher North,  or  of  Windermere. 

Windermere  !  Wby,  at  this  blessed  moment 
we  behold  the  beauty  of  all  its  intermingling 
isles.  There  they  are — all  gazing  down  on 
their  own  reflected  loveliness  in  the  magic 
mirror  of  the  air-like  water,  just  as  many  a 
holy  time  we  have  seen  them  all  agaze,  when, 
with  suspended  oar  and  suspended  breath — 
no  sound  but  a  ripple  on  the  Naiad's  bow,  and 
a  beating  at  our  own  heart — motionless  in 
our  own  motionless  bark — we  seemed  to 
float  midway  down  that  beautiful  abyss 
between  the  heaven  above  and  the  heaven 
below,  on  some  strange  terrestrial  scene 
composed  of  trees  and  the  shadows  of  trees, 
by  the  imagination  made  indistinguishable 
to  the  eye,  and  as  delight  deepened  into 
dreams,  all  lost  at  last,  clouds,  groves,  water, 
'  air,  sky,  in  their  various  and  profound  confu- 
sion of  supernatural  peace.  But  a  sea-born 
breeze  is  on  Bowness  Bay  ;  all  at  once  the  lake 
is  blue  as  the  sky;  and  that  evanescent  world 
is  felt  to  have  been  btit  a  vision.  Like  swans 
that  had  been  asleep  in  the  airless  sunshine, 
lo !  where  from  ever>'  shady  nook  appear  the 
white-sailed  pinnaces;  for  on  merry  Winder- 
mere— you  must  know — everj'  breezy  hour 
has  its  own  Regatta. 

But  intending  to  be  useful,  we  are  becoming 
ornamental :  of  us  it  must  not  be  said,  that 
"  Pure  dcsrripiion  holds  the  place  of  sense," — 

therefore,  let  us  be  simple  but  not  silly,  as 
plain  as  is  possible  without  being  prosy,  as 
instructive  as  is  consistent  with  being  enter- 
taining, a  cheerful  companion  and  a  irusty 
guide. 

We  shall  suppose  that  you  have  lef^  Kendal, 
and  are  on  your  way  to  Bowness.     Forget,  as 
much  as  may  be,  all  worldly  cares  and  anxie- 
ties, and  let  jour  hearts  be  open  and  free  to  all 
genial  iinpulses  about  to  be  breathed  into  them 
froiTi    the   beautiful    and   sublime   in   nature. 
There  is  no  need  of  that  foolish  state  of  feeling 
called  enthusiasm.    You  have  but  to  be  happy ; 
and  by  and  by  your  happiness  will  grow  into 
delight.     The  blue  mountains  already  set  your 
imaginations  at  work  ;  among  those  clouds  and 
mists  you  fancy  luany  a   magnificent   preci- 
pice— and  in  the  valleys  that  sleep  below  you 
'  image  to  yourselves  the  scener}'  of  rivers  and 
lakes.    The  landscape  immediately  around  gra- 
1  dually  grows  more  and  more  picturesque  and 
romantic ;  and  you  feel  that  you  are  on   the 
ver\'  borders  of  Fairy-Land.     The  first  smile 
I  of  Windermere  salutes  your  impatient   eyes, 
j  and  sinks  silently  into  your  heart.     You  know 
I  not  how  beautiful  it  may  be — nor  yet  in  what 
I  the  beauty  consists;  but  your  finest  sensibilities 
to  nature  are  touched — and  a  tinge  of  poetry,  as 
I  from  a  rainbow,  overspreads  that  cluster  of 


A  DAY  AT  WINDERMERE. 


97 


islands  that  seems  to  woo  j'ou  to  their  still  re- 
treats.    And  now 

"  Wooded  Winandermere,  the  river-lake," 
■with  all  its  bays  and  promontories,  lies  in  the 
morning  light  serene  as  a  Sabbath,  and  cheer- 
ful as  a  Hol\-day ;  and  you  feel  tliat  there  is 
loveliness  on  this  earth  more  exquisite  and 
perfect  than  ever  visited  your  slumbers  even 
in  the  glimpses  of  a  dream.  The  first  sight  of 
such  a  scene  will  be  unforgotten  to  your  dying 
day — for  such  passive  impressions  are  deeper 
than  we  can  explain — our  whole  spiritual  being 
is  suddenly  awakened  to  receive  them — and 
assocTations,  swift  as  light,  are  gathered  into 
one  Emotion  of  Beauty  which  shall  be  imperish- 
able, and  which,  often  as  memory  recalls  that 
moment,  grows  into  genius,  and  vents  itself  in 
appropriate  expressions,  each  in  itself  a  picture. 
Thus  may  one  moment  minister  to  year's;  and 
the  life-wearied  heart  of  old  age  by  one  delight- 
ful remembrance  be  restored  to  primal  joy — 
the  glory  of  the  past  brought  beamingly  upon 
the  faded  present — and  the  world  that  is  ob- 
scurely passing  away  from  our  eyes  re-illu- 
mined with  the  visions  of  its  early  morn.  The 
shows  of  nature  are  indeed  evanscent,  but  their 
spiritual  influences  are  immortal ;  and  from  that 
grove  now  glowing  in  the  sunlight  may  your 
heart  derive  a  delight  that  shall  utterly  perish 
but  in  the  grave. 

But  now  you  are  in  the  White  Lion,  and  our 
advice  to  you — perhaps  unnecessary — is  im- 
mediately to  order  breakfast.  There  are  many 
parlours — some  with  a  charming  prospect  and 
some  without  any  prospect  at  all ;  but  remember 
that  there  are  other  people  in  the  world  besides 
yourselves — and  therefore,  into  whatever  par- 
lour you  may  l)e  shown  by  a  pretty  maid,  be  con- 
tented, and  lose  no  time  in  addressing  yourselves 
to  your  repast.  Thatover,  be  in  nohurrj^  toget 
on  the  Lake.  Perhaps  all  the  boats  are  engaged 
— and  Billy  Balmer  is  atlhe  Waterhead.  SostroU 
into  the  cluirchyard,  and  take  a  glance  over  the 
graves.  Close  to  the  oriel-window  of  the  church 
is  one  tomb  over  which  one  might  meditate 
half  an  autumnal  day.  Enter  the  church,  and 
you  will  feel  the  beauty  of  these  fine  lines  in 
the  Excursion — 

"  Not  raised  in  nice  proportions  was  the  pile, 
But  larL'c  and  massy  ;  for  duration  built  ; 
With  pillars  crowded,  and  the  roof  upheld 
Hy  naked  rafters  intricately  cross'd 
Like  leafless  nnderliouirha,  'mid  some  thick  grove. 
All  wither'd  by  the  depth  of  shade  above  !" 

Go  down  to  the  low  terrace-walk  along  the 
Bay.  The  Bay  is  in  itself  a  Lake,  at  all  times 
cheerful  with  its  scattered  fleet,  at  anchor  or 
under  weigh — its  villas  and  cottages,  each  re- 
joicing in  its  garden  or  orchard — its  meadows 
mellowing  to  the  reedj-  margin  of  the  pellucid 
water — its  heath-covered  boat-houses — its  own 
portion  of  the  Isle  called  Beautiful — and  be- 
yond that  silvan  haunt,  the  sweet  Furness 
Fells,  with  gentle  outline  undulating  in  the 
sky,  and  among  its  spiral  larches  showing, 
here  and  there,  groves  and  copses  of  the  old 
nnviolated  woods.  Yes,  Bowness-Bay  is  in 
itself  a  Lake;  but  how  finely  does  it  blend 
away,  through  its  screens  of  oak  and  syca- 
more-trees, into  a  larger  Lake — another,  yet 
the  same — on  whose  blue  bosom  you  see 
13 


bearing  down  to  windward — for  the  morning 
breeze  is  born — many  a  tiny  sail.  It  has  the 
appearance  of  a  race.  Yes — it  is  a  race ;  and 
the  Liverpoolian,  as  of  yore,  is  eating  them  all 
out  of  the  wind,  and  without  another  tack  will 
make  her  anchorage.  But  hark — Music!  'Tis 
the  Bowness  Band  playing  "  See  the  conquer- 
ing Hero  comes !'' — and  our  old  friend  has 
carried  away  the  gold  cup  from  all  competi- 
tors. 

Now  turn  your  faces  up  the  hill  above  the 
village  school.  That  greetj  mount  is  what  is 
called  a — Station.  The  villagers  are  admiring 
a  grove  of  parasols,  while  you — the  party — are 
admiring  the  village — with  its  irregular  roofs 
white,  blue,  gray,  green,  brown,  and  black 
walls — fruit-laden  trees  so  yellow — its  central 
church-tower — and  environinggroves  variously 
burnished  by  autumn.  Saw  ye  ever  banks  and 
braes  and  knoNs  so  beautifully  bedropt  with 
human  dwellings'?  There  is  no  solitude  about 
Windermere.  Shame  on  human  nature  were 
Paradise  uninhabited  !  Here,  in  amicable 
neighbourhood,  are  halls  and  huts — here  rises 
through  groves  the  dome  of  the  rich  man's 
mansion — and  there  the  low  roof  of  the  poor 
man's  cottage  beneath  its  one  single  syca- 
more !  Here  are  hundreds  of  small  properties 
hereditary  in  the  same  families  for  hundr<  ds 
of  years — and  never,  never,  O  WestmoreIai>d! 
may  thy  race  of  statesmen  be  extinct — nor  the 
virtues  that  ennoble  their  humble  households  ! 
See,  suddenly  brought  forth  by  sunshine  from 
among  the  old  woods — and  then  sinking  a^\ay 
into  her  usual  unobtrusive  serenity — the  lake- 
loving  Rayrig,  almost  level,  so  it  seems,  with 
the  water,  yet  smiling  over  her  own  quiet  bay 
from  the  grove-shelter  of  her  pastoral  mound. 
Within  her  walls  may  peace  ever  dwell  with 
piety — and  the  light  of  science  long  blend  with 
•he  lustre  of  the  domestic  hearth.  Thence  to 
Calgarth  is  all  one  forest — )-et  glade-broktn, 
and  enlivened  by  open  uplands;  so  that  the 
roamer,  while  he  expects  a  night  of  umbrage, 
often  finds  himself  in  the  open  day,  beneath 
the  bright  blue  bow  of  heaven  haply  without  a 
cloud.  The  eye  travels  delighted  over  the 
multitudinous  tree-tops — often  dense  as  one 
single  tree — till  it  rests,  in  sublime  'jatisfaction, 
on  the  far-off  mountains,  that  lose  not  a  woody 
cfiaracter  till  the  tree-sprinkled  pastures 
roughen  into  rocks — and  rocks  tower  into  pre- 
cipices where  the  falcons  breed.  But  the  lake 
will  not  suffer  the  eye  long  to  wander  among 
the  distant  glooms.  She  wins  us  wholly  to 
herself— and  restlessly  and  passionately  for  a 
while,  but  calmly  and  affectionately  at  last,  the 
heart  embraces  all  her  beauty,  and  wishes 
that  the  vision  might  endure  for  ever,  and  that 
here  our  tents  were  pitched — to  be  struck  no 
more  during  our  earthly  pilgrimage.  Imagina- 
tion lapses  into  a  thousand  moods.  Oh  for  a 
fairy  pinnace  to  glide  and  float  for  aye  over 
those  golden  waves  !  A  hermit-cell  on  sweet 
Lady-Holm  !  A  silvan  shieling  on  Loughrig 
side!  A  nest  in  that  nameless  dell,  which 
sees  but  one  small  slip  of  heaven,  and  longs  at 
night  for  the  reascending  visit  of  its  few  loving 
stars!  A  dwelling  open  to  all  the  skyey  in- 
fluence on  the  mountain-brow,  the  darling  of 
the  rising  or  the  setting  sun,  and  often  seen  by 
I 


98 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


eyes  in  the  lower  world  glittering  through  the  | 
rainbow ! 

All  this  seems  a  very  imperfect  picture  in-  | 
deed,  or  panorama  of  Windermere,  from  the 
hill  behind  the  school-house  in  the  village  of 
Bowness.     So,  to  put  a  stop  to  such  nonsense, 
let  us  descend  to  the  White  Lion — and  inquire 
about  Billy  Balmer.     Honest  Billy  has  arrived 
from  Waterhead — seems  tolerably  steady — Mr. 
UUock's  boats  may  be  trusted — so  let  us  take 
a  vo3'^age  of  discovery  on  the  Lake.    Let  those 
who  have  reason  to  think  that  they  have  been 
born  to  die  a  diflerent  death  from  drowning, 
hoist  a  sail.     We  to-day  shall  feather  an  oar. 
Billy  takes  the  stroke — Mr.  William  Garnet 's 
at  the  helm — and  "row,  vassals,  row,  for  the 
pride  of  the  Lowlands,"  is  the  choral  song  that 
accompanies  the  Naiad  out  of  the  bay,  and 
round  the  north  end  of  the  Isle  called  Beauti- 
ful, under  the  wave-darkening  umbrage  of  that 
ancient  oak.     And  now  we  are  in  the  lovely 
straits  between  that  Island  and  the  mainland 
of  Furness  Fells.   The  village  has  disappeared, 
but  not  meltr-d  awaj';  for  hark !  the  Church- 
tower  tolls   ten — and  see  the  sun   is  high  in 
heaven.     High,  but  not  hot — for  the  first  Sep- 
tember frosts  chilled   the  rosy  fingers  of  the 
morn  as  she  bathed  them  in  the  dews,  and  the 
air  is  cool  as  a  cucumber.     Cool  but  bland — 
and  as  clear  and   transparent  as  a  fine  eye 
lighted  up  by  a  good  conscience.     There  were 
breezes  in  Bowness  Bay — but  here  there  are 
none — or,  if  there  be,  they  but  whisper  aloft  in 
the  tree-tops,  and  ruflle  not  the  water,  which  is 
calm  as  Louisa's  breast.    The  small  isles  here 
are  but  few  in  number — yet  the  best  arithme- 
tician of  the  party  cannot  count  them — in  con- 
fusion so  rich  and  rare  do  they  blend  their 
shadows  with  those  of  the  groves  on  the  Isle 
called  Beautiful,  and  on  the  Furness  Fells.    A 
tide,  imperceptible   to   the   eye,  drifts   us  on 
among  and  above  those  beautiful  reflections — 
that  downward  world  of  hanging  dreams!  and 
ever  and  anon  we  beckon  unto  Billv  gently  to 
dip  his  oar,  that  we  may  see  a  world  destroyed 
and  recreated  in  one  moment  of  time.     Yes, 
Billy!  thou  art  a  poet — and  canst  work  more 
wonders  with  thin    oar  than  could  he  with  his 
pen   who   painted   "heavenly   Una  with    her 
milk-white   lamb,"  wandering   by   herself  in 
Fairy-Land.    How  is  it,  pray,  that  our  souls 
are  satiated  with  such  beauty  as  this?     Is  it 
because    'tis     uns /Dstantial     all  —  senseless, 
though  fair — and  in  its  evanescence  unsuitcd 
to  the  S3'mpalhies  that  yearn  for  the  permanen- 
cies of  breathing  life]     Dreams  are  delightful 
only  as  delusions  within  the  delusion  of  this 
our  mortal  waking  existence — one  touch  of 
what  we  call  reality  dissolves  them  all ;  bliss- 
ful though  fhey  may  have  been,  we  care  not 
when   the  bubble   bursts — nay,  we    are   glad 
again  to  return  to  cur  own  natural  world,  care- 
'haunted  though  in  its  happiest  moods  it  be — 
glad  as   if  we  had  escaped  from  glamoury; 
and,  oh  !  beyond  expression  sweet  it  is  once 
more  to  drink  the   light  of  living  ej-es — the 
music  of  living  lips — after  that  preternatural 
hush  that  steeps  the  shadowy  realms  of  the 
imagination,  whether  stretching  along  a  sun- 
jet-heaven,  or  the  mystical  imneery  of  earth 
nnd  sky  floating  in  the  lustre  of  lake  or  sea. 


Therefore  "  row.  vassals,  row,  for  the  pride 
of  the  Lowlands  ;"  and  as  rowing  is  a  thirsty 
exercise,  let  us  land  at  the  Ferry,  and  each 
man  refresh  himself  with  a  horn  of  ale. 

There  is  not  a  prettier  place  on  all  Winder- 
mere than  the  Ferry-House,  or  one  better 
adapted  for  a  honey-moon.  You  can  hand 
your  bride  into  a  boat  almost  out  of  the  parlour 
window,  and  be  off  among  the  islands  in  a 
moment,  or  into  nook  or  bay  where  no  prying 
eye,  even  through  telescope,  (a  most  unwar- 
rantable instrument,)  can  overlook  your  happi- 
ness ;  or  you  can  secrete  yourselves,  like  buck 
and  doe,  among  the  lady-fern  on  Furness  Fells, 
where  not  a  sunbeam  can  intrude  on  your 
sacred  privacy,  and  where  you  may  melt  down 
hours  to  moments,  in  chaste  connubial  bliss, 
brightening  futurity  with  plans  of  domestic 
enjoyment,  like  long  lines  of  lustre  streaming 
across  the  lake.  But  at  present,  let  us  visit 
the  fort-looking  building  among  the  clifl's  called 
The  Station,  and  see  how  Windermere  looks 
as  we  front  the  east.  Why,  you  would  not 
know  it  to  be  the  same  lake.  The  Isle  called 
Beautiful,  which  heretofore  had  scarcely 
seemed  an  isle,  appearing  to  belong  to  one  or 
other  shore  of  the  mainland,  from  this  point  of 
view  is  an  isle  indeed,  loading  the  lake  with  a 
weight  of  beauty,  and  giving  it  an  ineflable 
character  of  richness  which  nowhere  else  does 
it  possess ;  while  the  other  lesser  isles,  dropt 
"  in  nature's  careless  haste"  between  it  and 
the  Furness  Fells,  connect  it  still  with  those 
lovely  shores  from  which  it  floats  a  short  way 
apart,  without  being  disunited— <>ne  spirit 
blending  the  whole  together  within  the  com- 
pass of  a  fledgling's  flight.     Beyond  these 

"  Sislcr  isles,  that  oniile 
Tnci'tlier  like  a  happy  family 
Ofl)cauty  and  of  love," 

the  ej-c  meets  the  Rayrig-woods,  with  but  a 
gleam  of  water  between,  only  visible  in  sun- 
shine, and  is  gently  conducted  by  them  up  the 
hills  of  Applethwaite,  diversified  with  culti- 
vated enclosures,  "all  green  as  emerald"  to 
their  very  summits,  with  all  their  pastoral  and 
arable  grounds  besprinkled  with  .stately  single 
trees,  copses,  or  groves.  On  the  nearer  side 
of  these  hills  is  seen,  stretching  far  ofl"  to  other 
lofty  regions — Hill-bell  and  High  Street  con- 
spicuous over  the  rest — the  long  vale  of  Trout- 
beck,  with  its  picturesque  cottages,  in  "num- 
bers without  number  numberless,"  and  all  its 
sable  pines  and  sycamores — on  the  further 
;  side,  that  most  silvan  of  all  silvan  mountains, 
j  where  lately  the  Hemans  warbled  her  native 
wood-notes  wild  in  her  poetic  bower,  fitly  call- 
ed Dovenest,  and  beyond,  Kirkstone  Fells  and 
R)dal  Head,  magnificent  giants  looking  west- 
ward to  the  Langdale  Pikes,  (here  unseen,) 
"  The  last  that  parley  with  the  setting  sun." 

Immediately  in  front,  the  hills  are  low  and 
lovely,  sloping  with  gentle  undulations  down 
to  the  lake,  here  grove-girdled  along  all  its 
shores.  The  elm-grove  that  overshadows  the 
Parsonage  is  especially  conspicuous — stately 
and  solemn  in  a  green  old  age — and  though 
now  silent,  in  spring  and  early  summer  clamor- 
ous with  rooks,  in  love  or  alarm,  an  ancient 
family,  and  not  to  be  expelled  from  their  heredi- 
tary seats.    Following  the  line  of  shore  to  the 


A  DAY  AT  WINDERMERE. 


99 


right,  and  turning  your  eyes  unwillingly  away 
from  the  bright  and  breezy  Belfield,  they  fall 
on  the  elegant  architecture  of  Storr's-hall, 
gleaming  from  a  glade  in  the  thick  woods,  and 
still  looking  southward  they  see  a  serene  series 
of  the  same  forest  scenery,  along  the  heights 
of  Gillhead  and  Gummer's-How,  till  Winder- 
mere is  lost,  apparently  narrowed  into  a  river, 
beyond  Townhead  and  Fellfoot,  where  the 
prospect  is  closed  by  a  beaconed  eminence 
clothed  with  shadowy  trees  to  the  very  base 
of  the  Tower.  The  points  and  promontories 
jutting  into  the  lake  from  these  and  the  oppo- 
site shores — which  are  of  an  humbler,  though 
not  tame  character — are  all  placed  most  felici- 
tously ;  and  as  the  lights  and  shadows  keep 
shifting  on  the  water,  assume  endless  varieties 
of  relative  position  to  the  eye,  so  that  often 
during  one  short  hour  you  might  think  you 
had  been  gazing  on  Windermere  with  a  kaleido- 
scopical eye,  that  had  seemed  to  create  the 
beauty  which  in  good  truth  is  floating  there 
for  ever  on  the  bosom  of  nature. 

That  description,  perhaps,  is  not  so  very 
much  amiss;  but  should  you  think  otherwise, 
be  so  good  as  to  give  us  a  better:  meanwhile 
let  us  descend  from  The  Station — and  its 
stained  windows — stained  into  setting  sunlight 
— frost  and  snow — the  purpling  autumn — and 
the  first  faint  vernal  green — and  re-embark  at 
the  Ferry-House  pier.  Berkshire  Island  is 
fair — but  we  have  always  looked  at  it  with  an 
evil  eye  since  unable  to  weather  it  in  our  old 
schooner,  one  day  when  the  Victory,  on  the 
same  tack,  shot  by  us  to  windward  like  a 
salmon.  But  now  we  are  half  way  between 
Storr's  Point  and  Rawlinson's  Nab — so,  my 
dear  Garnet,  down  with  the  helm  and  let  us 
put  about  (who  is  that  catching  crabs  ])  for  a 
fine  front  view  of  the  Grecian  edifice.  It  does 
honour  to  the  genius  of  Gaddy — and  say  what 
people  choose  of  a  classic  clime,  the  light  of  a 
Westmoreland  sky  falls  beautifully  on  that 
marble-like  stone,  which,  whether  the  heavens 
be  in  gloom  or  glory,  "  shines  well  where  it 
stands,"  and  (lings  across  the  lake  a  majestic 
shadow.  Methought  there  passed  along  the 
lawn  the  image  of  one  now  in  his  tomb!  The 
memory  of  that  bright  day  returns,  when  Win- 
dermere glittered  with  all  her  sails  in  honour 
of  the  great  Northern  Minstrel,  and  of  him  the 
Eloquent,  whose  lips  are  now  mute  in  the  dust. 
Methinks  we  see  his  smile  benign — that  we 
hear  his  voice  silver-sweet! 

"  But  away  witli  melancholy, 
Nor  dolei'ul  changes  ring" — 

as  such  thoughts  came  like  shadows,  like 
shadows  let  them  depart — and  spite  of  that 
■which  happeneth  to  all  men — "  this  one  day  we 
give  to  merriment."  Pull,  Billy,  pull — or  we 
will  turn  you  round — and  in  that  case  there  is 
no  refreshment  nearer  than  Newby-bridge. 
The  Naiad  feels  the  invigorated  impulse — and 
her  cut-water  murmurs  to  the  tune  of  six  knots 
through  the  tiny  cataract  foaming  round  her 
bows.  The  woods  are  all  running  down  the 
lake, — and  at  that  rate,  by  two  post  meridiem 
will  be  in  the  sea. 

Commend  us — on  a  tour — to  lunch  and  din- 
ner in  one.  'Tis  a  saving  both  of  time  and 
money — and  of  all  the  dinner-lunches  that  ever 


were  set  upon  a  sublunary  table,  the  facile 
principes  are  the  dinner-lunches  you  may  de- 
vour in  the  White  Lion,  Bowness.  Take  a 
walk— and  a  seat  on  the  green  that  overlooks 
the  village,  almost  on  a  level  with  the  lead- 
roof  of  the  venerable  church — while  Hebe  is 
laying  the  cloth  for  a  repast  fit  for  Jove,  Juno, 
and  the  other  heathen  gods  and  goddesses  ;  and 
if  you  must  have  politics — why,  call  for  the 
Standard  or  Sun,  (Heavens  !  there  is  that  hawk 
already  at  the  Times,)  and  devote  a  few  hur- 
ried and  hungry  minutes  to  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. Why,  the  Green  of  all  Greens — oftea 
traced  by  us  of  yore  beneath  the  midnight 
moonlight,  till  a  path  was  worn  along  the  edge 
of  the  low  wall,  still  called  "  North's  Walk" — 
is  absolutely  converted  into  a  reading-room, 
and  our  laking  party  into  a  political  club. 
There  is  Louisa  with  the  Leeds  Intelligencer — 
and  Matilda  with  the  Morning  Herald — and 
Harriet  with  that  York  paper  worth  them  all 
put  together— for  it  tells  of  Priam,  and  the 
Cardinal,  and  St.  Nicholas — but,  hark!  a  soft 
footstep !  And  then  a  soft  voice — no  dialect 
or  accent  pleasanter  than  the  Westmoreland 
— whispers  that  the  dinner-lunch  is  on  the 
table — and  no  leading  article  like  a  cold  round 
of  beef,  or  a  veal-pie.  Let  the  Parisians  settle 
their  Constitution  as  they  will — meanwhile  let 
us  strengthen  ours  ;  and  after  a  single  glass  of 
Madeira — and  a  horn  of  home-brewed — let  us 
ofi"  on  foot — on  horseback — in  gig — car  and 
chariot — to  Troutbeck. 

It  is  about  a  Scottish  mile,  we  should  think, 
from  Bowness  to  Cook's  House — along  the 
turnpike  road — half  the  distance  lying  embow- 
ered in  the  Rayrig  woods — and  half  open  to 
lake,  cloud,  and  sky.  It  is  pleasant  to  lose 
sight  now  and  then  of  the  lake  along  whose 
banks  you  are  travelling,  especially  if  during 
separation  you  become  a  Druid.  The  water 
woos  you  at  your  return  with  her  bluest  smile, 
and  her  whitest  murmur.  Some  of  the  finest 
trees  in  all  the  Rayrig  woods  have  had  the 
good  sense  to  grow  by  the  roadside,  where  they 
can  see  all  that  is  passing,  and  make  their  own 
observations  on  us  deciduous  plants.  Few  of 
them  seem  to  be  very  old— not  much  older 
than  Christopher  North — and,  like  him,  they 
wear  well,  trunk  sound  to  the  core,  arms  with 
a  long  sweep,  and  head  in  fine  proportions  of 
cerebral  development,  fortified  against  all 
storms — perfect  pictures  of  oaks  in  their  prime. 
You  may  see  one — without  looking  for  it — near 
a  farm-house  called  Miller-ground — himself  a 
grove.  His  trunk  is  clothed  in  a  tunic  of 
moss,  which  shows  the  ancient  Sylvan  to  great 
advantage — and  it  would  be  no  easy  matter  to 
give  him  a  fall.  Should  you  wish  to  see 
Windermere  in  all  her  glory,  you  have  but  to 
enter  a  gate  a  few  yards  on  this  side  of  his 
shade,  and  ascend  an  eminence  called  by  us 
Greenbank — but  you  had  as  well  leave  your 
red  mantle  in  the  carriage,  for  an  enormous 
white,  long-horned  Lancashire  bull  has  for 
some  years  established  his  head-quarters  not 
far  off,  and  you  would  not  wish  your  wife  to 
become  a  widow,  with  six  fatherless  children. 
But  the  royal  road  of  poetry  is  often  the  most 
splendid — and  by  keeping  the  turnpike,  you 
soon  find  yourself  on  a  terrace  to  which  there 


100 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


•was  nothing  to  compare  in  the  hanging  gar- 
dens of  Babylon.  There  is  the  widest  breadth 
of  water — the  richest  foreground  of  wood — and 
the  most  magnificent  background  of  mountains 
— not  only  in  Westmoreland  but — believe  us — 
in  all  the  world.  That  blue  roof  is  Calgarth — 
and  no  traveller  ever  pauses  on  this  brow 
without  giving  it  a  blessing — for  the  sake  of 
the  illustrious  dead  ;  for  there  long  dwelt  in 
the  body  Richard  Watson,  the  Defender  of  the 
Faith,  and  there  within  the  shadow  of  his  me- 
mory still  dwell  those  dearest  on  earth  to  his 
beatified  spirit.  So  pass  along  in  high  and 
solemn  thought,  till  you  lose  sight  of  Calgarth 
in  the  lone  road  that  leads  by  St.  Catharines, 
and  then  relapse  into  pleasant  fancies  and 
picturesque  dreams.  This  is  the  best  way  by 
far  of  approaching  Troutbeck.  No  ups  and 
downs  in  this  life  were  ever  more  enlivening 
— not  even  the  ups  and  downs  of  a  bird  learn- 
ing to  fly.  Sheep-fences,  six  feet  high,  are  ad- 
mirable contrivances  tor  shutting  out  scenery  ; 
and  by  shutting  out  much  scenery,  why,  you 
confer  an  unappreciable  value  on  the  little  that 
remains  visible,  and  feel  as  if  you  could  hug 
it  to  your  heart.  But  sometimes  one  does  feel 
tempted  to  shove  down  a  few  roods  of  inter- 
cepting stone-wall  higher  than  the  horse-hair 
on  a  cuirassier's  casque — though  sheep  should 
eat  the  suckers  and  scions,  protected  as  they 
there  shoot,  at  the  price  of  the  concealment  of 
the  picturesque  and  the  poetical  from  beauty- 
searching  eyes.  That  is  a  long  lane,  it  is 
said,  which  has  never  a  turning;  so  this  must 
be  a  short  one,  which  has  a  hundred.  Vou 
have  turned  your  back  on  Windermere — and 
our  advice  to  you  is,  to  keep  your  face  to  the 
mountains.  Troutbeck  is  a  jewel — a  diamond 
of  a  stream — but  Bobbin  Mills  have  exhausted 
some  of  the  most  lustrous  pools,  changing 
them  into  shallows,  where  the  minnows  rove. 
Deep  dells  are  his  delight — and  he  loves  the 
rugged  scaurs  that  intrench  his'wooded  banks 
— and  the  fantastic  rocks  that  tower-like  hang 
at  intervals  over  his  winding  course,  and 
seem  sometimes  to  block  it  up;  but  the  miner 
"works  his  way  out  beneath  galleries  and  arches 
in  the  living  stone — sometimes  silent — some- 
times singing — and  sometimes  roaring  like 
thunder — till  subsiding  into  a  placid  spirit,  ere 
he  reaches  the  wooden  bridge  in  the  bonny 
holms  of  Calgarth,  he  glides  graceful  as  the 
swan  that  sometimes  sees  his  image  in  his 
breast,  and  through  alder  and  willow  banks 
murmurs  away  his  life  in  the  Lake. 

Yes — that  is  Troutbeck  Chapel — one  of  the 
smallest — and  to  our  eyes  the  very  simplest — 
of  all  the  chapels  among  the  hills.  Yet  will  it 
be  remembered  when  more  pretending  edifices 
are  forgotten — just  like  some  mild,  sensible, 
but  perhaps  somewhat  too  silent  person,  whose 
acquaintanceship — nay  friendship — we  feel  a 
■wish  to  cultivate  we  scarce  know  why,  except 
that  he  is  mild,  sensible,  and  silent ;  whereas 
we  would  not  be  civil  to  the  hnifijuc,  upsetting, 
and  loquacious  puppy  at  his  elbow,  whose 
information  is  as  various  as  it  is  profound, 
were  one  word  or  look  of  courtesy  to  save 
him  from  the  flames.  For  heaven's  sake, 
Lousia,  don't  sketch  Troutbeck  Chapel.  There 
is  nothing  but  a  square  tower — a  horizontal  roof 


— and  some  perpendicular  walls.  The  outlines 
of  the  mountains  here  have  no  specific  cha- 
racter. That  bridge  is  but  a  poor  feature — and 
the  stream  here  very  common-place.  Put  them 
not  on  paper.  Yet  alive — is  not  the  sec.'ided 
scene  felt  to  be  most  beautiful  1  It  has  a  soul. 
The  pure  spirit  of  the  pastoral  age  is  breathing 
here — in  this  utter  noislessness  there  is  the 
oblivion  of  all  turmoil;  and  as  the  bleating  of 
flocks  comes  on  the  ear,  along  the  fine  air, 
from  the  green  pastures  of  the  Kentmere 
range  of  soft  undulating  hills,  the  stilled  heart 
whimpers  to  itself,  ••  this  is  peace  !" 

The  worst  of  it  is,  that  of  all  people  that  on 
earth  do  dwell,  your  Troutbeck  ftatesmen,  we 
have  heard,  are  the  most  litigious — the  most 
quarrelsome  about  straws.  Not  a  footpath  in 
all  the  parish  that  has  not  cost  many  pounds 
in  lawsuits.  The  most  insignificant  stile  is 
referred  to  a  full  bench  of  magistrates.  That 
gate  was  carried  to  the  Quarter  Sessions.  No 
branch  of  a  tree  can  shoot  six  inches  over  a 
march-wall  without  being  indicted  for  a  tres- 
pass. And  should  a  frost-loosened  stone  tumble 
from  some  sl.rtcs  down  upon  a  neighbour's 
field,  he  will  be  served  with  a  notice  to  quit 
before  next  morning.  Many  of  the  small  pro- 
perties hereabouts  have  been  mortgaged  over 
head  and  ears  mainly  to  fee  attorneys.  Yet 
the  last  hoop  of  apples  will  go  the  same  road — 
and  the  statesman,  driven  at  last  from  his  pa- 
ternal fields,  will  sue  for  something  or  another 
ill  funiia  piiupirif,  were  it  but  the  worthless 
wood  and  second-hand  nails  that  may  be  des- 
tined for  his  coflin.  This  is  a  pretty  picture 
of  pastoral  life — but  we  must  take  pastoral 
life  as  we  find  it.  Nor  have  we  any  doubt  thai 
things  were  every  whit  as  bad  in  the  lime  of 
the  Patriarchs — else — whence  the  satirical 
sneer,  "  sham  Abraham  ?"  Yonder  is  the 
Village  straggling  away  up  along  the  hillside, 
till  the  furthest  house  seems  a  rock  fallen  with 
trees  from  the  mountain.  The  cottages  stand 
for  the  most  part  in  clusters  of  twos  or  threes — 
with  here  and  there  what  in  Scotland  we 
should  call  a  rlnchdn — many  a  sma'  toun  with- 
in the  ae  lang  toun;  but  where  in  all  braid 
Scotland  is  a  mile-long  scattered  congregation 
of  rural  dwellings,  all  dropt  down  where  the 
Painter  and  the  Poet  would  have  wished  to 
plant  them,  on  knolls  and  in  dells,  and  on 
banks  and  braes,  and  below  tree-crested  rocks, 
and  all  bound  together  in  picturesque  confu- 
sion bv  old  groves  of  ash,  oak,  and  sycamore, 
and  by  flower-gardens  and  fruit-orchards,  rich 
as  those  of  the  Hespcrides  ? 

If  you  have  no  objections — our  pretty  dears 
— we  shall  return  to  Bowness  by  Lowood.  Let 
us  form  a  strapgling  line  of  march — so  that  we 
may  one  and  all  indulge  in  our  own  silent 
fiincies — and  let  not  a  word  be  spoken,  virgins 
— under  the  penally  of  two  kisses  for  one  syl- 
lable— till  we  crown  the  height  above  Briary- 
Close.  Why,  there  it  is  already — and  we  hear 
our  musical  friend's  voice-accompanied  guitar. 
From  the  front  of  his  cottage,  the  head  and 
shoulders  of  Windermere  are  seen  in  their 
most  majestic  shape — and  from  nowhere  else 
is  the  long-withdrawing  Langdale  so  magnifi- 
cently closed  by  mountains.  There  at  sunset 
hangs  "  Cloud-land,  gorgeous  land,"  by  gazing 


A  DAY  AT  WINDERMERE. 


101 


I 


on  which  for  an  hour  we  shall  all  become  poets 
and  poetesses.  Who  said  that  Windermere 
was  too  narrow?  The  same  critic  who  thinks 
the  full  harvest  moon  too  round — and  despises 
the  twinkling  of  the  evening  star.  It  is  all  the 
way  down — from  head  to  foot — from  the  Bra- 
thay  to  the  Leven — of  the  proper  breadth  pre- 
cisely— to  a  quarter  of  an  inch.  Were  the 
reeds  in  Poolwyke  Bay — on  which  the  birds 
love  to  balance  themselves — at  low  or  high 
water,  to-  be  visible  longer  or  shorter  than 
what  they  have  always  been  in  the  habit  of 
being  on  such  occasions  since  first  we  brushed 
them  with  an  oar,  when  landing  in  our  skiff 
from  the  EndeavoOr,  the  beauty  of  the  whole 
of  Windermere  would  be  impaired — so  exqui- 
sitely adapted  is  that  pellucid  gleam  to  the 
lips  of  its  silvan  shores.  True,  there  are  flaws 
in  the  diamond — but  only  when  the  squalls 
come ;  and  as  the  blackness  sweeps  by,  that 
diamond  of  the  first  water  is  again  sky-bright 
and  sky-blue  as  an  angel's  eyes.  Lowood  Bay 
— we  are  now  embarked  in  Mr.  Jackson's  pret- 
tiest pinnace — when  the  sun  is  westering — 
which  it  now  is — surpasses  all  other  bays  in 
fresh-water  mediterraneans.  Eve  loves  to 
srt?  her  pensive  face  reflected  in  that  screnest 
mirror.  To  flatter  such  a  divinity  is  impossi- 
ble— but  sure  she  never  wears  a  smile  so  di- 
vine as  when  adjusting  her  dusky  tresses  in 
that  truest  of  all  glasses,  set  in  the  richest  of 
all  frames.  Pleased  she  retypes — with  a  wa- 
vering motion — and  casting  "many  a  longing, 
lingering  look  behind,"  fades  indistinctly  away 
among  the  Brathay  woods  ;  while  Night,  her 
eldest  sister,  or  rather  her  younger — we  really 
know  not  which — takes  her  place  at  the  dark- 
ening mirror,  till  it  glitters  with  her  crescent- 
moon-coronct,  wreathed  perhaps  with  a  white 
cloud,  and  just  over  the  silver  bow  the  lustre 
of  one  large  yellow  star. 

As  none  of  the  party  complain  of  hunger, 
let  us  crack  among  us  a  single  bottle  of  our 
worthy  host's  choice  old  Madeira — and  then 
haste  in  the  barouche  (ha  I  here  it  is)  to  Bow- 
ness.  It  is  right  now  to  laugh — and  sing — and 
recite  poetry — and  talk  all  manner  of  nonsense. 
Didn't  ye  hear  something  crack  ]  Can  it  be  a 
spring — or  merely  the  axeltreel  Our  clerical 
friend  from  Chester  assures  us 'twas  but  a  string 
of  his  guitar — so  no  more  shrieking — and  after 
cofllee  we  shall  have 

"Rise  up,  rise  up,  Xarifa,  lay  your  golden  cushion  down!" 
And  then  we  two,  my  dear  sir,  must  have  a 
contest  at  chess — at  which,  if  3'ou  beat  us,  we 
shall  leave  our  bed  at  midnight,  and  murder 
you  in  your  sleep.  "  But  where,"  murmurs 
Matilda,  "  are  we  going  1"  To  Oresthead,  love 
— and  Elleraj' — for  you  must  see  a  sight  these 
sweet   eyes    of  thine    never    saw    before — a 

BUXSET. 

We  have  often  wondered  if  there  be  in  the 
world  one  woman  indisputably  and  undeniably 
the  most  beautiful  of  all  women — or  if,  indeed, 
our  first  mother  were  "  the  loveliest  of  her 
daughters,  Eve."  What  human  female  beauty 
is,  all  men  feel — but  few  men  know — and  none 
can  tell — further  than  that  it  is  perfect  spiritual 
health,  breathingly  imbodied  in  perfect  corpore- 
al flesh  and  blood,  according  to  certain  heaven- 
framed  adaptions  of  form  and  hue,  yet  by   a 


familiar  yet  inscrutable  mystery,  to  our  senses 
and  our  souls  express  sanctity  and  purity  of 
the  immortal  essence  enshrined  within,  by  aid 
of  all  associated  perceptions  and  emotions 
that  the  heart  and  the  imagination  can  agglo- 
merate round  them,  as  instantly  and  as  unhesi- 
tatingly as  the  faculties  of  thought  and  feeling 
can  agglomerate  round  a  lily  or  a  rose,  for 
example,  the  perceptions  and  emotions  that 
make  them — by  divine  right  of  inalienable 
beauty — Uie  Royal  Families  of  Flowers.  This 
definition — or  description  rather — of  human 
female  beauty,  may  appear  to  some,  as  indeed 
it  appears  to  us — something  vague ;  but  all 
profound  truths — out  of  the  exact  sciences — 
are  something  vague;  and  it  is  manifestly  the 
design  of  a  benign  and  gracious  Providence, 
that  they  should  be  so  till  the  end  of  time — till 
mortality  puts  on  immortality — and  earth  is 
heaven.  Vagueness,  therefore,  is  no  fault  in 
philosophy — any  more  than  in  the  dawn  of 
morning,  or  the  gloaming  of  eve.  Enough,  if 
each  clause  of  the  sentence  that  seeks  to  eluci- 
dat'e  a  confessed  mystery,  has  a  meaning  har- 
monious with  all  the  meanings  in  all  the  other 
clauses — and  that  the  effect  of  the  whole  taken 
together  is  musical — and  a  tune.  Then  it  is 
Truth.  For  all  Falsehood  is  dissonant — and 
verity  is  concent.  It  is  our  faith,  that  the  souls 
of  some  women  are  angelic — or  nearly  so — 
by  nature  and  the  Christian  religion;  and  that 
the  faces  and  persons  of  some  women  are  an- 
gelic or  nearly  so — whose  souls,  nevertheless, 
are  seen  to  be  far  otherwise — and,  on  that  disco- 
very, beauty  fades  or  dies.  But  may  not  soul 
and  body — spirit  and  matter — meet  in  perfect 
union  at  birth ;  and  grow  together  into  a  crea- 
ture, though  of  spiritual  mould,  comparable 
with  Eve  before  the  FalH  Such  a  creature — 
such  creatures — may  have  been  ;  but  the  ques- 
tion is — did  you  ever  see  onel  We  almost 
think  that  we  have — but  many  long  years  ago  ; 

"  She  is  dedde, 
Gone  to  her  deafh-bedde 
All  under  the  willow  tree.' 

And  it  may  be  that  her  image  in  the  moonlight 
of  memory  and  imagination,  may  be  more  per- 
fectly beautiful  than  she  herself  ever  was, 
when 

"  Uperew  that  living  flower  beneath  our  eye." 
Yes — 'tis  thus  that  we  form  to  ourselves — in- 
communicably  within  our  souls — what  we 
choose  to  call  Ideal  Beauty— that  is,  a  life-in- 
death  image  or  Eidolon  of  a  Being  whose  voice 
was  once  heard,  and  whose  footsteps  once 
wandered  among  the  flowers  of  this  earth.  But 
it  is  a  mistake  to  believe  that  such  beauty  as 
this  can  visit  the  soul  only  after  the  original 
in  which  it  once  breathed  is  no  more.  For 
as  it  can  only  be  seen  by  profoundest  passion 
— and  the  profoundest  are  the  passions  of  Love, 
and  Pity,  and  Grief— then  why  may  not  each 
and  all  of  these  passions — when  we  consider 
the  constitution  of  this  world  and  this  life — be 
awakened  in  their  utmost  height  and  depth  by 
the  sight  of  living  beauty,  as  well  as  by  the 
memory  of  the  dead?  "To  do  so  is  surely 
within  "  the  reachings  of  our  souls,"-  -and  if 
so,  then  may  the  virgin  beauty  of  his  daughter, 
praying  with  folded  hands  and  heavenward 
.  face  when  leaning  in  health  on  her  falhei's 
I  2 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIX 


102 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


knees,  transcend  even  the  ideal  beauty  which  ' 
shall  afterwards   visit   his   slumbers  nightly, , 
long  years  after  he  has   laid  her  head  in  the 
grave.    If  by  ideal  beauty,  you  mean  a  beauty 
beyond  whatever  breathed,  and   moved,  and 
had  its  being  on  earth — then  we  suspect  that 
not  even  "that  inner  eye  which  is  the  bliss  of  | 
solitude"  ever   beheld   it ;  but   if  you  merely 
mean  by  ideal  beauty,  that  which  is  composed 
of  ideas,  and  of  the  feelings  attached  by  nature 
to  ideas,  then,  begging  your  pardon,  my  good 
sir,  all  beauty  whatever  is  ideal — and  you  had 
better  begin  to  study  metaphysics. 

But  what  we  were  wishing  to  say  is  this — 
that  whatever  may  be  the  truth  with  regard  to 
human  female  beauty — Windermere,  seen  by 
sunset  from  the  spot  where  we  now  stand, 
Elleray,  is  at  this  moment  the  most  beautiful 
scene  on  this  earth.  The  reasons  why  it  must 
be  so  are  mulliiudinous.  Not  only  can  the  eye 
take  in,  but  the  imagination,  in  its  awakened 
power,  can  master  all  the  component  elements 
of  the  spectacle — and  while  it  adequately  dis- 
cerns and  sufficiently  feels  the  intlucnce  of 
each,  is  alive  throughout  all  its  essence  to  the 
divine  agency  of  the  whole.  The  charm  lies 
in  its  entirety — its  unity,  which  is  so  perfect — 
so  scemeth  it  to  our  eyes — that  'tis  in  itself  a 
complete  world — of  which  not  a  line  could  he 
altered  without  disturbing  the  spirit  of  beauty 
that  lies  recumbent  there,  wherever  the  earth 
meets  the  sky.  There  is  nothing  here  frag- 
mentary; and  liad  a  poet  been  born,  and  bred 
here  all  his  days,  nor  known  aught  of  fair  or 
grand  beyond  this  liquid  vale,  yet  had  he  sung 
truly  and  profoundly  of  the  shows  of  nature. 
No  rude  and  shapeless  masses  of  mountains 
— such  as  too  often  in  our  own  dear  Scotland 
encumber  the  earth  with  dreary  desolatiun — 
with  gloom  without  grandeur — and  magnitude 
without  magnificence.  But  almost  in  orderly 
array,  and  irregular  just  up  to  the  point  of  the 
picturesque,  where  poetry  is  not  needed  for  the 
fancy's  pleasure,  stand  the  Race  of  Giants — 
mist-veiled  transparently^-or  crowned  with 
clouds  slowly  settlingof  their  own  accord  into 
all  the  forms  that  Beauty  loves,  when  with  her 
sister-spirit  Peace  she  descends  at  eve  from 
highest  heaven  to  sleep  among  the  shades  of 
earth. 

Sweet  would  be  the  hush  of  lake,  woods,  and 
skies,  were  it  not  so  solemn  !  The  silence  is 
that  of  a  temple,  and,  as  we  face  the  west,  irre- 
sistibly are  we  led  to  adore.  The  mighty  sun 
occupies  with  his  flaming  retinue  all  the  re- 
gion. Mighty  yet  mild — for  from  his  disc, 
awhile  insufferably  bright,  is  effused  now  a 
gentle  crimson  light,  that  dyes  all  the  west  in 
one  uniform  glory,  save  where  yet  round  the 
cloud  edges  lingers  the  purple,  the  green,  and 
the  yellow  lustre,  unwilling  to  forsake  the 
violet  beds  of  the  sky,  changing,  while  we 
gaze,  into  heavenly  roses;  till  that  prevailing 
crimson  colour  at  last  gains  entire  possession 
of  the  heavens,  and  all  the  previous  splendour 
gives  way  to  one  whose  paramount  purity,  lus- 
trous as  fire,  is  in  its  steadfast  beauty  sublime. 
And.  lo !  the  lake  has  received  that  sunset  into 
its  bosom.  It,  too,  softly  burns  with  a  crimson 
glow — and,  as  sinks  the  sun  below  the  moun- 
'ains    Windermere,  gorgeous  in  her  array  as 


the  western  sky,  keeps  fading  away  as  it  fades, 
till  at  last  all  the  ineffable  splendour  expires, 
and  the  spirit  that  has  been  lost  to  this  world  in 
the  transcendent  vision,  or  has  been  seeing  all 
things  appertaining  to  this  world  in  visionary 
symbols,  returns  from  that  celestial  sojourn, 
and  knows  that  its  lot  is,  henceforth  as  hereto- 
fore, to  walk  weariedly  perhaps,  and  wo-begone, 
over  the  no  longer  divine  but  disenchanted 
earth  ! 

It  is  very  kind  in  the  moon  and  stars — just 
like  them — to  rise  so  soon  after  sunset.  The 
heart  sinks  at  the  sight  of  the  sky,  when  a  cha- 
racterless night  succeeds  such  a  blaze  of  light 
— like  dull  reality  dashing  the  last  vestiges  of 
the  brightest  of  dreams.  When  the  moon  is 
"  hid  in  her  vacant  interlunar  cave,"  and  not  a 
star  can  "  burst  its  cerements,"  imagination  in 
the  dim  blank  droops  her  wings — our  thoughts 
become  of  the  earth  earthly — and  poetry  seems 
a  pastime  fit  but  for  fools  and  children.  But 
how  diflcrcnt  our  mood,  when 

"Glows  Ihe  nrmanicnt  wilh  living  sappliires," 
and  Diana,  who  has  ascended  high  in  heaven, 
without  our  having  once  observed  the  divinity, 
bends  her  silver  bow  amtmjj  the  rejoicing  stars, 
while  the  lake,  like  another  sky,  seems  to  con- 
tain its  own  luminaries,  a  different  division  of 
the  constellated  night !  'Tis  merry  Winder- 
mere no  more.  Yet  we  must  not  call  her  me- 
lancholy— thoueh  somewhat  sad  she  seems, 
and  pensive,  as  if  the  stillness  of  universal  na- 
ture did  touch  her  heart.  How  serene  all  the 
lights — how  peaceful  all  the  shado\^s  !  Stead- 
fast alike — as  if  they  would  brood  for  ever — 
yet  transient  as  all  loveliness — and  at  the 
mercy  of  every  cloud.  In  some  places  the 
lake  has  disappeared — in  others,  the  moonlight 
is  almost  like  sunshine — only  silver  instead  of 
gold.  Here  spots  of  quiet  light — there  lines  of 
trembling  lustre — and  there  a  tlood  of  radiance 
chequered  by  the  images  of  trees.  Lo !  the 
Isle  called  Beautiful  has  now  gathered  upon 
its  central  grove  all  the  radiance  issuing  from 
that  celestial  Urn ;  and  almost  in  another  mo- 
ment it  seems  blended  with  the  dim  mass  of 
mainland,  and  blackness  enshrouds  the  woods. 
Still  as  seems  the  night  to  unobservant  eyes,  it 
is  tluctuaiing  in  its  expression  as  the  face  of  a 
sleeper  overspread  with  pleasant  but  disturb- 
ing dreams.  Never  for  any  two  successive 
moments  is  the  aspect  of  the  night  the  same, — 
each  smile  has  its  own  meaning,  its  own  cha- 
racter; and  Light  is  felt  to  be  like  Mnsic,  to 
have  a  melody  and  a  harmony  of  its  own — so 
mysteriously  allied  are  the  powers  and  pro- 
vinces of  eye  and  ear,  and  by  such  a  kindred 
and  congenial  agency  do  they  administer  to 
the  workings  of  the  spirit. 

Well,  that  is  very  extraordinary — Rain — 
rain — rain  !  All  the  eyes  of  heaven  were 
bright  as  bright  might  be — the  sky  was  blue 
as  violets — that  braided  whiteness,  that  here 
and  there  floated  like  a  veil  on  the  brow  of 
night,  was  all  that  recalled  the  memory  of 
clouds — and  as  for  the  moon,  no  faintest  halo 
yellowed  round  her  orb,  that  seemed  indeed 
"one  perfect  chrysolite;" — yet  while  all  the 
winds  seemed  laid  asleep  till  morn,  and  beauty 
to  have  chained  all  the  elements  into  peace — 
overcast  in  a  moment  is  the   firmament — an 


THE  MOORS. 


JOS 


evanishing  has  left  it  blank  as  mist — there  is 
a  fast,  thick,  pattering  on  the  woods — yes — 
rain — rain — rain — and  ere  we  reach  Bowness, 
the  party  will  be  wet  through  to  their  skins. 
Nay — matters  are  getting  still  more  serious — 
for  there  was  lightning — yea,  lightning!  Ten 
seconds!  and  hark,  very  respectable  thunder! 
With  all  our  wisdom,  we  have  not  been  wea- 
ther-wise— or  we  should  have  known,  when 
we  saw  it,t  an  electrical  sunset.  Only  look 
now  towards  the  West.  There  floats  Noah's 
Ark — a  magnificent  spectacle;  and  now  for 
the  Flood.  That  far-off  sullen  sound  proclaims 
cataracts.  And  what  may  mean  that  sighing 
and  moaning  and  muttering  up  among  the 
cliffs  ]      See — see   how   the    sheet    lightning 


shows  the  long  lake-shore  all  tumbling  with 
foamy  breakers.  A  strong  wind  is  there— but 
here  there  is  not  a  breath.  But  the  woods 
across  the  lake  are  bowing  their  heads  to  the 
blast.  Windermere  is  in  a  tumult — the  storm 
comes  flying  on  wings  all  abroad — and  now  we 
are  in  the  very  heart  of  the  hurricane.  See,  in 
Bowness  is  hurrying  many  a  light — for  the 
people  fear  we  may  be  on  the  lake ;  and  faith- 
ful Bill}^  depend  on't,  is  launching  his  life-boat 
to  go  to  our  assistance.  Well,  this  is  an  ad- 
venture.  But  soft — what  ails  our  Argand 

Lamp !  Our  Study  is  in  such  darkness  that 
we  cannot  see  our  paper — in  the  midst  of  a 
thunder-storm  we  conclude,  and  to  bed  by  a 
flaff  of  lightning. 


THE  MOOES. 


PROLOGUE. 

0\cE  we  knew  the  Highlands  absolutely  too 
well — not  a  nook  that  was  not  as  familiar  to  us 
as  our  brown  study.  We  had  not  to  complain 
of  the  lochs,  glens,  woods,  and  mountains 
alone,  for  having  so  fastened  themselves  upon 
us  on  a  great  scale  that  we  found  it  impossible 
to  shake  them  off;  but  the  hardship  in  our 
case  was,  that  all  the  subordinate  parts  of  the 
scenery,  many  of  them  dull  and  dreary  enough, 
and  some  of  them  intolerably  tedious,  had 
taken  it  upon  themselves  so  to  thrust  their  in- 
timacy upon  us,  in  all  winds  and  weathers,  that 
without  giving  them  the  cut  direct  there  was 
no  way  of  escaping  from  the  burden  of  their 
friendship.  To  courteous  and  humane  Chris- 
tians, such  as  we  have  always  been  both  by 
name  and  nature  as  far  back  as  we  can  recol- 
lect, it  is  painful  to  cut  even  an  impudent 
stone,  or  an  upsetting  tree  that  may  cross  our 
path  uncalled  for,  or  obtrude  itself  on  our 
privacy  when  we  wish  to  be  alone  in  our  me- 
ditations. Yet,  we  confess,  they  used  some- 
times sorely  to  try  our  temper.  It  is  all  very 
well  for  you,  our  good  sir,  to  say  in  excuse  for 
them  that  such  objects  are  inanimate.  So 
much  the  worse.  Were  they  animate,  like 
yourself,  they  might  be  reasoned  with  on  the 
impropriety  of  interrupting  the  stream  of  any 
man's  soliloquies.  But  being  not  merely  in- 
animate but  irrational,  objects  of  that  class 
know  not  to  keep  their  own  place,  which  in- 
deed, it  may  be  said  in  reply,  is  kept  for  them 
by  nature.  But  that  Mistress  of  the  Ceremo- 
nies, though  enjoying  a  fine  green  old  age, 
cannot  be  expected  to  be  equally  attentive  to 
the  proceedings  of  all  the  objects  under  her 
control.  Accordingly,  often  when  she  is  not 
looking,  what  more  common  than  for  a  huge 
hulking  fellow  of  a  rock,  with  an  absurd  tuft 
of  trees  on  his  head,  who  has  observed  )'ou 
lying  half-asleep  on  the  greensward,  to  hang 
eavesdropping,  as  it  were,  over  your  most 
secret  thoughts,  which  he  whispers  to  the  winds, 
and  they  to  all  the  clouds !     Or  for  some  gro- 


tesque and  fantastic  ash,  with  a  crooked  back, 
and  arms  disproportionately  long,  like  a  giant 
in  extreme  old  age  dwindling  into  a  dwarf,  to 
jut  out  from  the  hole  in  the  wall,  and  should 
your  leaden  ej'^e  chance  at  the  time  to  love  the 
ground,  to  put  his  mossy  fist  right  in  your  phi- 
losophical countenance  !  In  short,  it  is  very 
possible  to  know  a  country  so  thoroughly  well, 
outside  and  in,  from  mountain  to  molehill,  that 
you  get  mutually  tired  of  one  another's  com- 
pany, and  are  ready  to  vent  your  quarrel  in  re- 
ciprocal imprecations. 

So  was  it  once  with  us  and  the  Highlands. 
That  "too  much  familiarity  breeds  contempt" 
we  learned  many  a  long  year  ago,  when  learn- 
ing to  write  large  text;  and  passages  in  our 
life  have  been  a  running  commentary  on  the 
theme  then  set  us  by  that  incomparable  cali- 
graphist,  Buttcrworth.  All  "the  old  familiar 
faces"  occasionally  come  in  for  a  portion  of 
that  feeling ;  and  on  that  account,  we  are  glad 
that  we  saw,  but  for  one  day  and  one  night, 
Charles  Lamb's.  Therefore,  some  dozen  years 
ago  we  gave  up  the  Highlands,  not  wishing  to 
quarrel  with  them,  and  confined  our  tender  as- 
siduities to  the  Lowlands,  while,  like  two  great 
Flats  as  we  were,  we  kept  staring  away  at  each 
other,  with  our  lives  on  the  same  level.  All 
the  consequences  that  might  naturally  have 
been  expected  have  ensued ;  and  we  are  now 
as  heartily  sick  of  the  Lowlands,  and  they  of 
us.  What  can  we  do  but  return  to  our  First 
Lovel 

Allow  us  to  offer  another  view  of  the  sub- 
ject. There  is  not  about  Old  Age  one  blessing 
more  deserving  gratitude  to  Heaven,  than  the 
gradual  bedimmingof  memory  brought  on  .v 
years.  In  youth,  all  things,  internal  and  exter- 
nal, are  unforgetable,  and  by  the  perpetual 
presence  of  passion  oppress  the  soul.  The 
eye  of  a  woman  haunts  the  victim  on  whom 
it  may  have  given  a  glance,  till  he  leaps  per 
haps  out  of  a  four-story  window.  A  beautiful 
lake,  or  a  sublime  mountain,  drives  a  young 
poet  as  mad  as  a  March  hare.  He  loses  him 
self  in  an  interminable  forest  louring  all  roun  ' 


104 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  N'ORTH. 


the  horizon  of  a  garret  six  feet  square.  It 
matters  not  to  him  whether  his  eyes  be  open 
or  shut.  He  is  at  the  mercy  of  all  Life  and  all 
Nature,  and  not  for  one  hour  can  he  escape 
from  their  persecutions.  His  soul  is  the  slave 
of  the  Seven  Senses,  and  each  is  a  tyrant  with 
instruments  of  torture,  to  whom  and  to  which 
Phalaris,  with  his  brazen  bull,  was  a  pointless 
joke.  But  in  old  age  "  the  heart  of  a  man  is 
oppressed  with  care"  no  longer ;  the  Seven 
Tyrants  have  lo^t  their  sceptres,  and  are  de- 
throned ;  and  the  grayheadcd  gentleman  feels 
that  his  soul  has  "  set  up  its  rest."  His  eyes 
are  dazzled  no  more  with  insufferable  light — 
no  more  his  ears  tingle  with  music  loo  exqui- 
site to  be  borne — no  more  his  touch  is  trans- 
port. The  scents  of  nature,  stealing  from  the 
balmy  mouths  of  lilies  and  roses,  are  deadened 
in  his  nostrils.  He  is  above  and  beyond  the 
reach  of  all  the  long  arms  of  many-handed 
misery,  as  he  is  out  of  the  convulsive  clutch 
of  bliss.  And  is  not  this  the  state  of  best  hap- 
piness for  mortal  man?  Tranquillity!  The 
peaceful  air  that  we  breathe  as  we  are  wester- 
ing towards  the  suns<ft-regions  of  our  Being, 
and  feel  that  we  are  about  tf)  drop  down  for 
ever  out  of  sight  behind  the  Sacred  Mountains. 

All  this  may  be  very  fine,  but  cannot  be  said 
to  help  us  far  on  with  our  Prtdogue.  Let  us 
try  it  again.  Old  men,  we  remarlced,  ought  to 
be  thankful  to  Heaven  for  their  dim  memories. 
Never  do  we  feel  that  more  profoundly  than 
when  dreaming  about  the  Hiichiands.  All  is 
confusion.  Nothing  distinctly  do  we  remember 
— not  even  the  names  of  lochs  and  mountains. 
Where  is  Ben  Crn — Cru — Cru — what's-his- 
name]  Ay — ay — Cruachan.  At  this  blessed 
moment  wc  see  his  cloud-capped  bend — but  we 
have  clean  forgotten  the  silver  sound  of  the 
name  of  the  country  he  encumbers.  Ross- 
shire  1  Nay,  that  won't  do — he  never  was  at 
Tain.  M'e  are  assured  by  Dr.  Rcid's,  Dr.  Beat- 
tie's,  and  Dugaid  Stewart's  great  Instinctive 
First  Principle  Belief,  that  oftener  than  once, 
or  ten  times  either,  have  we  been  in  a  day-long 
liollow  among  precipices  dear  to  eagles,  called 
Cilcn-Etive.  But  where  begins  or  where  ends 
that  "severe  sojourn,"  is  now  to  us  a  mystery 
— though  we  hear  the  sound  of  the  sea  and 
the  dashing  of  cataracts.  Yet  though  all  is 
thus  dim  in  our  memory,  would  you  believe  it 
that  nothing  is  utterly  lost?  No,  not  even  the 
thoughts  that  soared  like  eagles  vanishing  in 
the  light — or  that  dived  like  ravens  into  the 
gloom.  They  all  re-appear — those  from  the 
Empyrean — these  from  Hades — reminding  us 
of  the  good  or  the  evil  borne  in  other  days, 
within  the  spiritual  regions  of  our  boundless 
being.  The  world  of  eye  and  ear  is  not  in 
reality  narrowed  because  it  glimmers;  ever 
and  anon  as  years  advance,  a  light  direct  from 
heaven  dissipates  the  gloom,  and  bright  and 
glorious  as  of  yore  the  landscape  laughs  to 
the  sea,  the  sea  to  heaven,  and  heaven  back 
again  to  the  gazing  spirit  that  leaps  forward 
to  the  hailing  light  with  something  of  the  same 
divine  passion  that  gave  wings  to  our  youth. 

All  this  maybe  still  finer,  yet  cannot  be  said, 
any  more  than  the  preceding  paragraph,  much 
to  help  us  on  with  our  Prologue.  To  come 
then,  if  possible,  to  the  point  at  once — We  are 


happy  that  our  dim  memory  and  our  dim  ima- 
gination restore  and  revive  in  our  mind  none 
but  the  characteristic  features  of  the  scenery 
of  the  Highlands,  unmixed  with  baser  matter, 
and  all  floating  magnificently  through  a  spirit- 
ual haze,  so  that  the  whole  region  is  now  more 
than  ever  idealized ;  and  in  spite  of  all  his 
present,  past,  and  future  prosiness — Christo- 
pher North,  soon  as  in  thought  his  feet  touch 
the  heather,  becomes  a  poet. 

It  has  long  been  well  known  to  the  whole 
world  that  we  are  a  sad  egotist^— yet  our  ego- 
tism, so  far  from  being  a  detraction  from  our 
attraction,  seems  to  be  the  very  soul  of  it, 
making  it  impossible  in  nature  for  any  reason- 
able being  to  come  within  its  sphere,  without 
being  drawn  by  sweet  compulsion  to  the  old 
wizard's  heart.  He  is  so  buniaue .'  Only  look 
at  him  for  a  few  minutes,  and  liking  becomes 
love — love  becomes  veneration.  .\nd  all  this 
even  before  he  has  opened  his  lips — by  the 
mere  power  of  his  ogles  and  his  temples.  In 
his  large  mild  blue  eye»  is  written  not  only  his 
nature,  but  miraculously,  in  German  text,  his 
very  name,  CSbrit'tcpbor  9iCrtb.  Mrs.  Gentle 
was  the  first  to  discover  it;  though  we  remem- 
ber having  been  asked  more  than  once  in  our 
youth,  by  an  alarmed  virgin  on  whom  we 
happened  at  the  time  to  be  looking  tender,  "If 
we  were  aware  thai  there  was  something  pre- 
ternatural in  our  eyes?"  6hrtftcvl>iT  is  con- 
spicuous in  our  right  eye — 9Jcrtb  in  our  left, 
and  when  wc  wish  to  be  inrog.,  we  either  draw 
their  fringed  curtains,  or,  nunlike,  keep  the 
tell-tale  orbs  fixed  on  the  grotind.  Candour 
whispers  us  to  confess,  that  s<ime  years  ago  a 
child  was  exhibited  at  six-pence  with  William 
Wo«iii  legible  in  its  optics — having  been  affili- 
ated, by  ocular  evidence,  on  a  gentleman  of 
that  name,  who.  with  his  dying  breath,  dis- 
owned the  soft  impeachment.  But  in  that 
case  nature  had  written  a  vile  scrawl — in  ours 
her  hand  is  firm,  and  goes  off  with  a  flourish. 

Have  you  ever  entered,  all  alone,  the  shadows 
of  some  dilapidated  old  burial-place,  and  in  a 
nook  made  beautiful  by  wild-briers  and  a  flow- 
ering thorn,  beheld  the  stone  image  of  some 
long-forgotten  worthy  lying  on  his  grave? 
Some  knight  who  perhaps  had  fought  in  Pa- 
lestine— or  some  holy  man,  who  in  the  Abbey — 
now  almost  gone — had  led  a  Ion?  still  life  of 
prayer?  The  moment  you  knew  that  yoa 
were  standing  among  the  dwellings  of  the  dead, 
how  impressive  became  the  ruins  !  Did  not  that 
stone  image  wax  more  and  more  lifelike  in  its 
repose  ?  And  as  you  kept  your  eyes  fixed  on 
the  features  Time  had  not  had  the  heart  to 
obliterate,  seemed  not  your  soul  to  hear  the 
echoes  of  the  Miserere  sung  by  the  brethren  ? 

So  looks  Christopher — on  his  couch — in  his 
ALrovF..  He  is  lakinijhis  siesta — and  the  faint 
shadows  you  see  coming  and  eroing  across  his 
face  are  dreams.  'Tis  a  pensive  dormitor)', 
and  hangs  undisturbed  in  its  spiritual  region 
as  a  cloud  on  the  sky  of  the  Longest  Day  when 
it  falls  on  the  Sabbath. 

What  think  you  of  oin  Fatheh,  alongside 
of  the  Pedlar  in  the  Excursion?  Wordsworth 
says — 

"  Amid  Itie  Bloom, 
Spread  by  a  broihcrhood  of  lofty  elm 


THE  MOORS. 


105 


Appear'd  a  roofless  hut ;  four  naked  walls 
That  stared  upon  each  oth<;r  !     I  look'd  round. 
And  to  my  wish  and  to  my  hope  espied 
Him  whom  I  sought  ;  a  man  of  reverend  age, 
But  stout  and  hale,  for  travel  unimpair'd. 
There  was  he  seen  upon  the  cottape  bench, 
Recumbent  in  the  shade,  as  if  asleep; 
An  iron-pointed  staff  lay  at  his  side." 

Alas  !  "  stout  and  hale"  are  words  that  could 
not  be  applied,  without  cruel  mocking,  to  our 
figure.  "  Recumbent  in  the  shade"  unques- 
tionably he  is — yet  "recumbent"  is  a  clumsy 
word  for  such  quietude;  and,  recurring  to  our 
former  image,  we  prefer  to  say,  in  the  words 
of  Wilson — 

"Still  is  he  as  a  frame  of  stone 

That  in  its  stillness  lies  alone. 

With  silence  breathing  from  its  face, 

For  ever  in  some  holy  place,  ■ 

Chapel  or  aisle — on  marble  laid, 

With  pale  hands  on  his  pale  breast  spread, 

An  image  humble,  meek,  and  low, 

Of  one  forgotten  long  ago  :" 

No  "iron-pointed  staff" lies  at  his  side" — but 
"Satan's  dread,"  the  Cniriit!  Wordsworth 
tells  us  over  again  that  the  Pedlar — 

"  With  no  appendage  but  a  staff. 
The  prized  memorial  of  relinquish' d  toils, 
Upon  the  cottage-bench  reposed  his  limbs, 
Screcn'd  from  the  sun." 

On  his  couch,  in  his  Alcove,  Christopher  is 
reposing — not  his  limbs  alone — but  his  very 
essence.  The  Chutch  is,  indeed,  both  tie  Jure 
and  (Ic  fiirto  the  prized  memorial  of  toils — but, 
thank  Heaven,  not  rc/iJu/Kis/icrf  toils ;  and  then 
how  characteristic  of  the  dear  merciless  old 
man — hardly  distinguishable  amnngthe  fringed 
draperies  of  his  canopy,  the  dependent  and  in- 
dependent Knoi't. 

Was  the  Pedlar  absolutely  asleep  1  We 
shrewdly  suspect  not — 'twas  but  a  doze.  "Re- 
cumbent in  the  shade,  a.t  if  nslcc)" — "  Upon  that 
cottage-bench  reposed  his  limbs" — induce  us  to 
lean  to  the  opinion  that  he  was  but  on  the  bor- 
der of  the  Land  of  Nod.  Nay.  the  poet  gets 
more  explicit,  and  with  that  minute  particu- 
larity so  charming  in  poetical  description, 
finally  informs  us  that 

"  Supine  the  wanderer  lay, 
His  eyes,  as  if  in  drowsiness,  half  shut. 
The  slindows  of  the  breezy  elms  above 
Dappling  his  face." 

It  would  appear,  then,  on  an  impartial  con- 
sideration of  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case, 
that  the  "  man  of  reverend  age,"  though  "  re- 
cumbent" and  "supine"  upon  the  "cottage 
bench,"  "  as  if  asleep,"  and  "  his  e3^es,  as  if  in 
drowsiness,  half  shut,"  was  in  a  mood  between 
sleeping  and  waking  ;  and  this  creed  is  corro- 
borated by  the  following  assertion — 

"He  had  not  heard  the  sound 
Of  my  approaching  steps,  and  in  the  shade 
Unnoticed  did  I  stand  some  minutes'  space. 
At  length  I  liail'd  him,  seeing  that  his  hat 
Was  moist  with  water-drops,  as  if  the  brim 
Had  newly  scoop'da  running  stream." 

He  rose ;  and  so  do  We,  for  probably  by  this 
time  you  may  have  discovered  that  we  have 
been  describing  Ourselves  in  our  siesta  or  mid- 
day snooze — as  Ave  have  been  beholding  in 
our  mind's  eye  our  venerated  and  mysterious 
Double. 

We  cannot  help  flattering  ourselves — if  in- 
deed it  be  flattery — that  though  no  relative  of 
his,  we  have  a  look  of  the  Pedlar — as  he  is  ela- 
14 


borately  painted  by  the  hand  of  a  great  master 
in  the  aforesaid  Poem. 

Him  had  I  niark'd  the  day  before — alone. 
And  station'd  in  ihe  public  way,  with  face 
Turn'd  to  the  sun  then  setting,  while  that  staff 
Afforded  to  the  figure  of  the  man. 
Detained  for  contemplation  or  repose, 
Graceful  support,"  &c. 

As  if  it  were  yesterday,  we  remember  our 
first  interview  with  the  iBard.  It  was  at  the 
Lady's  Oak,  between  Ambleside  and  Rydal. 
We  were  then  in  the  very  flower  of  our  age — 
just  sixty;  so  we  need  not  say  the  century  had 
then  seen  but  little  of  this  world.  The  Bard 
was  a  mere  boy  of  some  six  lustres,  and  had  a 
lyrical  ballad  look  that  established  his  identity 
at  first  sight,  all  unlike  the  lack-a-daisical.  His 
right  hand  was  within  his  vest  on  the  region 
of  the  heart,  and  he  ceased  his  crooning  as  we 
stood  face  to  face.  What  a  noble  countenance  ! 
at  once  austere  and  gracious — haughty  and  be- 
nign— of  a  man  conscious  of  his  greatness 
while  yet  companioning  with  the  humble — an 
unrecognised  power  dwelling  in  the  woods. 
Our  figure  at  that  moment  so  impressed  itself 
on  his  imagination,  that  it  in  time  supplanted 
the  image  of  the  real  Pedlar,  and  grew  into  the 
Emeritus  of  the  Three  Days.  We  were  standing 
in  that  very  attitude — having  deposited  on  the 
coping  of  the  wall  our  Kit,  since  adopted  by 
the  British  Army,  with  us  at  once  alibraryand 
a  larder. 

And  again — and  even  more  characteristi- 
cally— 

"  Plain  was  his  garb  : 
Such  as  might  suit  a  rustic  sire,  prepared 
For  ."Sabbath  duties  ;  yet  he  was  a  man 
Whom  no  one  could  have  pass'd  without  remark. 
Active  and  nervous  was  his  gait;  his  limbs 
Atid  his  whole  figure  breathed  intelligence. 
Time  had  compress'd  the  freshness  of  his  cheeks 
Into  a  narrower  circle  of  deep  red, 
But  had  not  tamed  his  eye.  that  under  brows, 
ShagL'y  and  crey,  had  meanings,  which  it  brought 
From  years  of  youth  ;  whilst,  like  a  being  made 
Of  many  beings,  he  had  wondrous  skill 
To  blend  with  knowledge  of  the  years  to  come. 
Human,  or  such  as  lie  beyond  the  grave." 

In  our  intellectual  characters  we  indulge 
the  pleasing  hope  that  there  are  some  striking 
points  of  resemblance,  on  which,  however,  our 
modesty  will  not  permit  us  to  dwell — and  in 
our  acquirements,  m.ore  particularly  in  Plane 
and  Spherical  Trigonometry. 

"  While  yet  he  linger'd  in  the  rudiments 
Of  science,  and  among  her  simplest  laws, 
His  triangles— they  were  the  stars  of  heaven. 
The  silent  stars!  oft  did  he  take  delight 
To  measure  the  altitude  of  some  tall  crag. 
That  is  the  eagle's  birthplace,"  &c. 

So  it  was  with  us.  Give  us  but  a  base  and  a 
quadrant — and  when  a  student  in  Jemmy  Mil- 
lar's class,  we  could  have  given  you  the  alti- 
tude of  any  steeple  in  Glasgow  or  the  Gorbals. 
Occasionally,  too,  in  a  small  party  of  friends, 
though  not  proud  of  the  accomplishment,  we 
have  been  prevailed  on,  as  you  may  have 
heard,  to  delight  humanity  with  a  song — "The 
Flowers  of  the  Forest,"  "  Roy's  Wife,"  "Flee 
up,  flee  up,  thou  bonnie  bonnie  Cock,"  or 
"  Auld  Langsyne" — just  as  the  Pedlar 

"  At  request  would  sing 
Old  songs,  the  product  of  his  native  hills 
A  skilful  distribution  of  sweet  sounds. 
Feeding  the  soul,  and  eagerly  imbibed 
As  cool  refreshing  water,  by  the  caie 


106 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


Of  the  industrious  husbandman  difTused 
Through   a   parch'd    meadow   field    in    time   of 
drouglit." 

Our  natural  disposition,  too,  is  as  amiable  as 

that  of  the  "  Vagrant  Merchant." 

"And  surely  never  did  tliere  live  on  earth 
A  man  of  kindlier  nature.     The  roii-jh  sports 
And  teasing  ways  of  children  vex'd  not  liim  : 
Indulgent  listener  was  he  to  the  tongue 
Of  garrulous  age;  nor  did  the  sick  man's  tale. 
To  his  fraternal  sympathy  address'd, 
Obtain  reluctant  hearing." 

Who  can  read  the  following  lines,  and  not 
think  of  Christopher  North  1 

"Birds and  beasts. 
And  the  mute  fish  that  glances  in  the  stream, 
And  harmless  reptile  coding  in  the  sun, 
And  gorgeous  insect  hovering  in  the  air, 
The  fowl  domestic,  and  the  household  dog — 
In  his  capacious  mind  he  loved  them  all." 

True,  that  our  love  of 

"The  mute  fish  that  glances  in  the  stream," 
is  not  incompatible  with  the  practice  of  the 
"angler's  silent  trade,"  or  with  the  pleasure  of 
"  filling  our  pannier."  The  Pedlar,  too,  we  have 
reason  to  know,  was  like  his  poet  and  our- 
selves, in  that  art  a  craftsman,  and  for  love 
beat  the  molecatcher  at  busking  a  batch  of 
May-flies.  We  question  whether  Lascelles 
himself  were  his  master  at  a  green  dragon. 
"The  harmless  reptile  coiling  in  the  sun"  we 
are  not  so  sure  about,  having  once  been  bit  by 
an  adder,  whom  in  oursimplicity  we  mistook  for 
a  slow-worm — the  very  day,  by  the  by,  on 
■which  we  were  poisoned  by  a  dish  of  toad- 
stools, by  our  own  hand  gathered  for  mush- 
rooms. But  we  have  long  given  over  chasing 
butterflies,  and  feel,  as  the  Pedlar  did,  that  they 
are  beautiful  creatures,  and  that  'tis  a  sin  be- 
tween finger  and  thumb  to  compress  their 
mealy  wings.  The  household  dog  we  do  in- 
deed dearly  love,  though  when  old  Surl}'  looks 
suspicious  we  prudently  keep  out  of  the  reach 
of  his  chain.  As  for  "  the  domestic  fowl,"  we 
breed  scores  every  spring,  solely  for  the  delight 
of  seeing  them  at  their  tmlks, 

"Among  the  rural  villages  and  farms  ;" 

and  though  game  to  the  back-bone,  they  are 
allowed  to  wear  the  spurs  nature  eave  them — 
to  crow  undipped,  challenging  but  the  echoes; 
nor  is  the  sward,  like  the  sod,  ever  reddened 
■with  their  heroic  blood,  for  hateful  to  our  ears 
the  war-song, 

"  Welcome  to  your  gory  bed, 
Or  to  victory!" 

'Tis  our  way,  you  know,  to  pass  from  gay 
to  grave  matter,  and  often  from  a  jocular  to  a 
serious  view  of  the  same  subject — it  being 
natural  to  us — and  having  become  habitual 
too,  from  our  writing  occasionally  in  Black- 
"wood's  Magazine.  All  the  world  knows  our 
admiration  of  Wordsworth,  and  admits  that 
■we  have  done  almost  as  much  as  Jcfl'rey  or 
Taylor  to  make  his  poetry  popular  among  the 
"  educated  circles."  But  we  are  not  a  nation 
of  idolaters,  and  worship  neither  graven  image 
nor  man  that  is  born  of  a  woman.  We  may 
Fcem  to  have  treated  the  Pedlar  with  insufli- 
cient  respect  in  that  playful  parallel  between 
him  and  ourselves ;  but  there  you  are  wrong 
again,  for  we  desire  thereby  to  do  him  honour. 
We  wish  DOW  to  say  a  few  words  on  the  wis- 


I  dom  of  making  such  a  personage  the  chief 
character  in  a  Philosophical  Poem. 

He  is  described  as  endowed  by  nature  with 
a  great  intellect,  a  noble  imagination,  a  pro- 
found soul,  and  a  tender  heart.  It  will  not  be 
said  that  nature  keeps  these  her  noblest  gifts 
for  human  beings  born  in  this  or  that  condition 
of  life :  she  gives  them  to  her  favourites — for 
so,  in  the  highest  sense,  they  are  to  whom 
such  gifts  befall;  and  not  unfrequently,  in  aa 
obscure  place,  of  one  of  the  Fortunati 

"The  fulgent  head 
Star-bright  appears." 

Wordsworth  appropriately  places  the  birth  of 
such  a  being  in  an  humble  dwelling  in  the 
Highlands  of  Scotland. 

"  Amone  the  hills  of  Athnl  he  was  born; 

Where  on  a  small  hereditary  farm. 

An  unproductive  slip  of  barren  ground. 

His  parents,  with  their  numerous  offspring,  dwell: 

A  \  irtuous  houschidd,  though  exceeding  poor." 

His  childhood  was  nurtured  at  home  in  Chris- 
tian love  and  truth — and  acquired  other  know- 
ledge at  a  winter  school;  for  in  summer  he 
"tended  cattle  on  the  hill"  — 

"That  stood 
Sole  building  on  a  mountain's  dreary  edge." 

.And  the  influence  of  such  education  and  occu- 
pation among  such   natural   objects,  Words- 
worth expounds  in  some  as  fine  poetry  as  ever 
issued  from  the  cells  of  philosophic  thought- 
"So  the  foundations  of  his  mind  were  laid." 

The  boy  had  small  need  of  books — 

"  For  many  a  tale 
Traditionary,  round  the  mountains  hung, 
.\nd  many  a  legend,  peopling  the  dark  woods, 
Nourish'd  Imagination  in  her  growth. 
And  cave  the  mind  Ihal  apprehensive  power 
Hy  which  she  is  madr  quick  to  rrcncnise 
The  moral  properties  and  scope  of  things." 

But  in  the  Manse  there  were  books — and  he 

read 

"  Whate'er  the  minister's  old  shelf  supplied. 
The  lifr  and  death  of  mahyrs,  who  sustain'd, 
Willi  w  ill  inllexiblc,  those  fearful  pangs, 
Triumphnnlly  display'd  In  records  left 
Of  persecution  and  the  Tovenant." 

Can  you  not  believe  that  by  the  time  he  was 
as  old  as  you  were  when  you  used  to  ride  to 
the  races  on  a  pony,  by  the  side  of  your  sire 
the  Squire,  this  boy  was  your  equal  in  know- 
ledge, though  you  had  a  private  tutor  all  to 
yourself,  and  were  then  a  promising  lad,  as 
indeed  you  are  now  after  the  lapse  of  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  1  True,  as  yet  he  "  had  small 
Latin  and  no  Greek;"  but  the  elements  of 
these  languages  may  be  learned — trust  us — 
b}'  slow  degrees — by  the  mind  rejoicing  in  the 
consciousness  of  its  growing  faculties — ihiring 
leisure  hours  from  other  studies — as  they  were 
by  the  Athol  adolescent.  A  Scholar — in  your 
sense  of  the  word — he  misht  not  be  called, 
even  when  he  had  reached  his  seventeenth 
year,  though  probably  he  would  have  puzzled 
you  in  Livy  and  Virgil ;  nor  of  English  poetrj' 
had  he  read  much — the  less  the  better  for  such 
a  mind — at  that  age,  and  in  that  condition — 
for 

"Accumulated  feelings  press'd  his  heart 

With  still  increasing  weight ;  he  was  o'erpower'd 

By  nature,  by  the  turbulence  subdued 

Of  his  own  mind,  by  mystery  and  hope. 

And  the  first  virgin  passion  of  a  soul 

Communinc  with  the  glorious  Universe." 

But  he  had  read  Poetry — ay,  the  same  Poetir 


THE  MOOKS. 


107 


that  Wordsworth's  self  read  at  the  same  age 
—and 

"  Amnne  the  hills 
He  paznd  upon  that  iiiishty  Orb  of  Sun, 
The  divine  Milton." 

Thus  endowed,  and  thus  instructed, 
"  By  Nature,  that  did  never  yet  betray 
The  heart  that  loved  her," 

ths  youth  was  ''greater  than  he  knew;"  yet 
that  there  was  something  great  in,  as  well  as 
about  him,  he  felt — 

"Thus  daily  thirsting  in  that  lonesome  life," 
for  some  diviner  communication  than  had  yet 
been  vouchsafed  to  him  by  the  Giver  and  In- 
spirer  of  his  restless  Being. 

"In  dreams,  in  Btudy,  and  in  ardent  thought. 
Thus  was  he  rear'd  ;  much  want  ins:  to  assist 
The  growth  of  intclleit,  yet  eaining  more, 

And  every  moral  feeling  of  his  soul 
StrenEtlieii'd  and  braced,  by  breathing  in  content 
The  keen,  the  wholesome  air  of  poverty. 
And  drinking  from  the  well  of  homely  life." 

But  he  is  in  his  eighteenth  year,  and 

"  la  siiniinnn'd  lo  select  the  course 
Of  humble  industry  that  promised  best 
To  yield  him  no  unworthy  maintenance." 

For  a  season  he  taught  a  village  school,  which 
many  a  fine,  high,  and  nol)le  spirit  has  done 
and  is  doing;  but  he  was  impatient  of  the  hills 
he  loved,  and 

"That  stern  yet  kindly  spirit,  who  constrains 
The  Savoyard  lo  quit  his  native  rocks. 
The  free-iiorn  .Swiss  lo  leave  his  narrow  vales, 
(Spirit  altach'd  to  reiiions  mountainous 
Like  their  own  steadfast  clouds.)  did  now  impel 
His  restless  mind  to  look  abroad  with  hope." 

It  had  become  his  duty  to  choose  a  profession 
. — a  trade — a  calling.  Ho  was  not  a  gentle- 
man, mind  ye,  and  had  probably  never  so  much 
as  heard  a  rumour  of  the  existence  of  a  silver 
fork:  ho  had  been  born  with  a  wooden  spoon 
in  his  moulh — and  had  lived, partly  from  choice 
and  partly  from  necessity,  on  a  vegetable  diet. 
He  had  not  ten  pounds  in  the  world  he  could 
call  his  own  ;  but  he  could  borrow  fifty,  for  his 
father's  son  was  to  be  trusted  to  that  amount 
by  any  family  that  chanced  to  have  it  among 
the  Athol  hills — therefore  he  resolved  on  "  a 
hard  service,"  which 

"Gain'd  merited  respect  in  simpler  times; 
When  squire,  and  priest,  and  they  who  round  them 

dwelt 
In  rustic  sequestration,  all  dependent 
Upon  the  PEni.An's  toil,  supplied  their  wants. 
Or  pleased  their  fancies  with  the  ware  he  brought. 

Would  Alfred  have  ceased  to  be  Alfred  had 
he  lived  twenty  years  in  the  hut  where  he 
spoiled  the  bannocks  1  Would  Gustavus  have 
ceased  to  be  Gustavus  had  he  been  doomed  to 
dree  an  ignoble  life  in  the  obscurest  nook  in 
Dalecarlia  1  Were  princes  and  peers  in  our 
day  degraded  by  working,  in  their  expatria- 
tion, with  head  or  hand  for  bread  1  Are  the 
Polish  patriots  degraded  by  working  at  eighteen 
pence  a  day,  without  victuals,  on  embankments 
of  railroads?  "At  the  risk  of  giving  a  shock 
to  the  prejudices  of  artificial  society,  I  have 
ever  been  ready  to  pay  homage  to  the  aristo- 
cracy of  nature,  under  a  conviction  that  vigor- 
ous human-lieartedness  is  the  constituent  prin- 
ciple of  true  taste."  These  are  Wordsworth's 
own  words,  and  deserve  letters  of  gold.  He 
has  given  many  a  shock  to  the  prejudices  of 


artificial  society ;  and  in  ten  thousand  cases, 
where  the  heart  of  such  society  was  happily 
sound  at  the  core,  notwithstanding  the  rotten 
kitchen-stuff  with  which  it  was  incrusted,  the 
shocks  have  killed  the  prejudices;  and  men 
and  women,  encouraged  to  consult  their  own 
breasts,  have  heard  responses  there  to  the 
truths  uttered  in  music  by  the  high-souled 
Bard,  assuring  them  of  an  existence  there  of 
capacities  of  pure  delight,  of  which  they  had 
had  either  but  a  faint  suspicion,  or,  because 
"of  the  world's  dread  laugh,"  feared  to  ia 
dulge,  and  nearly  let  die. 

Mr.  Wordsworth  quotes  from  Heron's  Scot- 
land an  interesting  passage,  illustrative  of  the 
life  led  in  our  country  at  that  time  by  that 
class  of  persons  from  whom  he  has  chosen 
one — not,  mind  you,  imaginary,  though  for 
purposes  of  imagination — adding  that  "  his 
own  personal  knowledge  emboldened  him  to 
draw  the  portrait."  In  that  passage  Heron 
says,  "  As  they  wander,  each  alone,  through 
thinly  inhabited  districts,  they  form  habits  of 
reflection  and  of  sublime  contemplation,"  and 
that,  with  all  their  qualifications,  no  wonder 
they  should  contribute  much  to  polish  the 
roughness  and  soften  the  rusticity  of  our  pea- 
santry. " In  North  America,"  he  says,  "  travel 
ling  merchants  from  the  settlements  have  don? 
and  continue  to  do  much  more  towards  civiliz 
ing  the  Indian  natives  than  all  the  missiona 
ries.  Papist  or  Protestant,  who  have  ever  been 
sent  among  them ;"  and,  speaking  again  ot 
Scotland,  he  says,  "it  is  not  more  than  twenty 
or  thirty  years,  since  a  young  man  going  from 
any  part  of  Scotland  to  England  for  the 
purpose  to  carry  the  pack,  was  considered  as 
going  to  lead  the  life,  and  acquire  the  fortune 
of  a  gentleman.  When,  after  twenty  years' 
absence  in  that  honourable  line  of  employ- 
ment, he  returned  with  his  acquisitions  to  his 
native  country,  he  was  regarded  as  a  gentle- 
man to  all  intents  and  purposes."  We  have 
ourselves  known  gentlemen  who  had  carried 
the  pack— one  of  them  a  man  of  great  talents 
and  acquirements — who  lived  in  his  old  age  in 
the  highest  circles  of  society.  Nobody  troubled 
their  head  about  his  birth  and  parentage— /or 
he  teas  then  very  rich ;  but  you  could  not  sit  ten 
minutes  in  his  company  without  feeling  that 
he  was  "  one  of  God  Almighty's  gentlemen," 
belonging  to  the  "  aristocracy  of  Nature." 

You  have  heard,  we  hope,  of  Alexander 
Wilson,  the  illustrious  Ornithologist,  second 
not  even  to  Audubon — and  sometimes  absurd- 
ly called  the  Great  American  Ornithologist, 
because  witti  pen  and  pencil  he  painted  in 
colours  that  will  never  die — the  Birds  of  the 
New  World.  He  was  a  weaver — a  Paisley 
weaver — a  useful  trade,  and  a  pleasant  place 
— where  these  now  dim  eyes  of  ours  first  saw 
the  light.  And  Sandy  was  a  pedlar.  Hear  his 
words  in  an  autobiography  unknown  to  the 
Bard  :— "  I  have  this  day,  I  believe,  measured 
the  height  of  an  hundred  stairs,  and  explored 
the  recesses  of  twice  that  number  of  misera- 
ble habitations;  and  what  have  I  gained  by 
it  I—only  two  shillings  of  worldly  pelf!  but  au 
invaluable  treasure  of  obser^'^ation.  in  this 
elegant  dome,  wrapt  up  in  glittering  silks,  and 
stretched  on  the  downy  sofa,  recline  the  fair 


108 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


daughters  of  wealth  and  indolence — the  ample 
mirror,  flowery  floor,  and  magnificent  couch, 
their  surrounding  attendants ;  while,  suspended 
in  his  wiry  habitation  above,  the  shrill-piped 
canary  warbles  to  enchanting  echoes.  Within 
the  confines  of  that  sickly  hovel,  hung  round 
with  squadrons  of  liis  brother-artists,  the  pale- 
faced  weaver  plies  the  resounding  lay,  or 
launches  the  melancholy  murmuring  shuttle. 
Lifting  his  simple  latch,  and  stooping  for  en- 
trance to  the  miserable  hut,  there  sits  poverty 
and  ever-moaning  disease,  clothed  in  dunghill 
rags,  and  ever  shivering  over  tl;e  fireless 
chimney.  Ascending  this  stair,  the  voice  of 
joy  bursts  on  my  ear — the  bridegroom  and 
bride,  surrounded  by  their  jocund  companions, 
circle  the  sparkling  glass  and  humorous  joke, 
or  join  in  the  raptures  of  the  noisy  dance — the 
squeaking  fiddle  breaking  through  the  general 
uproar  in  sudden  intervals,  while  the  sound- 
ing floor  groans  beneath  its  unruly  load. 
Leaving  these  happy  mortals,  and  ushering 
into  this  silent  mansion,  a  more  solemn — a 
striking  object  presents  itself  to  my  view. 
The  windows,  the  furniture,  and  every  thing 
that  could  lend  one  cheerful  thought,  are  hung 
in  solemn  white;  and  there,  stretched  pale  and 
lifeless,  lies  the  awful  corpse,  while  a  few 
weeping  friends  sit,  black  and  solitarj',  near 
\he  breathless  clay.  In  this  other  place,  the 
fearless  sons  of  Bacchus  extend  their  brazen 
throats,  in  shouts  like  bursting  thunder,  to  the 
praise  of  their  gorgeous  chief.  Opening  this 
door,  the  lonely  matron  explores,  for  consola- 
tion, her  Bible;  and  in  this  hotise  the  wife 
brawls,  the  children  shriek,  and  the  poor  hus- 
band bids  me  depart,  lest  his  termagant's 
fury  should  vent  itself  on  me.  In  short,  such 
an  inconceivable  variety  daily  occurs  to  my 
observation  in  real  life,  that  would,  were  they 
moralized  upon,  convey  more  maxims  of  wis- 
dom, and  give  a  juster  knowledge  of  mankind, 
than  whole  volumes  of  Lives  and  Adventures, 
that  perhaps  never  had  a  being  except  in  the 
prolific  brains  of  their  fantastic  authors." 

At  a  subsequent  period  he  retraced  his  steps, 
taking  with  him  copies  of  his  poems  to  di.s- 
tribule  among  subscribers,  and  endeavour  to 
promote  a  more  extensive  cirrulation.  Of  this 
excursion  also  he  has  given  an  account  in  his 
journal,  from  which  it  appears  that  his  suc- 
cess was  far  from  encouraging.  Among 
amusing  incidents,  sketches  of  character, 
occasional  sound  and  intelligent  remarks 
upon  the  manners  and  prospects  of  the  com- 
mon classes  of  society  into  which  he  found 
his  way,  there  are  not  a  few  severe  expressions 
indicative  of  deep  disappointment,  and  some 
that  vTierely  bespeak  the  keener  pangs  of  the 
wounded  pride  founded  on  conscious  merit. 
"You,"  says  he,  on  one  occasion,  "whose 
souls  are  susceptible  of  the  finest  feelings,  who 
are  elevated  to  rapture  with  the  least  dawnings 
of  hope,  and  sunk  into  despondency  with  the 
slightest  thwartings  of  your  expectations — 
think  what  I  felt."-  Wils(m  himself  attributed 
his  ill  fortune,  in  his  attempts  to  gain  the 
humble  patronage  of  the  poor  for  his  poetical 
pursuits,  to  his  occupation.  "  A  parkman  is  a 
character  which  none  esteems,  and  almost 
every  one  despises.    The  idea  that  people  of 


all  ranks  entertain  of  them  is,  that  they  are 
mean-spirited  lo(iuacious  liars,  cunning  and 
illiterate,  watching  every  opportunity,  and 
using  every  mean  art  within  their  power,'  to 
cheat."  This  is  a  sad  account  of  the  esti- 
mation in  which  a  trade  was  then  held  in 
Scotland,  which  the  greatest  of  our  living  poets 
has  attributed  to  the  chief  character  in  a  poem 
comprehensive  of  philosophical  discussions 
on  all  the  highest  interests  of  humanit)'.  But 
both  Wilson  and  Wordsworth  are  ir  the  right: 
both  saw  and  have  spoken  truth.  Most  small 
packmen  were  then,  in  some  measure,  what 
Wilson  says  they  were  generally  esteemed 
to  be — peddling  pilferers,  and  insignificant 
swindlers.  Poverty  sent  them  swarming  over 
bank  and  brae,  and  the  "  snia'  kintra  touns" — 
and  for  a  plack  people  will  forget  principle 
who  have,  as  we  say  in  Scotland,  missed  the 
world.  Wilson  knew  that  to  a  man  like  him- 
self there  was  degradation  in  such  a  calling; 
and  he  latterly  vented  his  contemptuous 
sense  of  it,  exaggerating  the  baseness  of  the 
name  and  nature  of  pachnau.  But  suppose 
such  a  man  as  Wilson  to  have  been  in  better 
times  one  of  but  a  few  packmen  travelling 
regularly  for  years  over  the  same  country, 
each  with  his  own  district  or  domain,  and 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  would  have 
been  an  object  both  of  interest  and  of  respect 
— his  opportunities  of  seeing  the  very  best 
and  the  very  happiest  of  humble  life,  in 
itself  very  various,  would  have  been  very 
great;  and  with  his  original  genius,  he  would 
have  become,  like  Wordsworth's  Pedlar,  a 
good  moral  Philosopher. 

Without,  therefore,  denying  the  truth  of  his 
picture  of  packmanship,  we  may  believe  the 
truth  of  a  picture  entirely  the  reverse,  from  the 
hand  and  heart  of  a  still  wiser  man — though 
his  wisdom  has  been  gathered  from  less  im- 
mediate contact  with  the  coarse  garments  and 
clay  floors  of  the  labouring  poor. 

It  is  pleasant  to  hear  Wordsworth  speak  of 
his  own  "  personal  knowledge"  of  packmen  or 
pedlars.  We  cannot  say  of  him  in  the  words 
of  Burns,  '•  the  fienl  a  pride,  nae  pride  had  he;" 
for  pride  and  power  are  brothers  on  earth, 
whatever  they  may  prove  to  be  in  heaven. 
But  his  prime  pride  is  his  poetry;  and  he  had 
not  now  been  "sole  king  of  rocky  Cumberland," 
had  he  not  studied  the  character  of  his  subjects 
in  "huts  where  poor  men  lie" — had  he  not 
"  stopped  his  anointed  head  "  beneath  the  doors 
of  such  huts,  as  willingly  as  he  ever  raised  it 
aloft,  with  all  its  glorious  laurels,  in  the  palace? 
of  nobles  and  princes.  Yes,  the  inspiration 
he  "  derived  from  the  light  of  setting  suns," 
was  not  so  sacred  as  that  which  often  kindled 
within  his  spirit  all  the  divinity  of  Christian 
man,  when  conversing  charitably  with  his 
brother-man,  a  wayfarer  on  the  dusty  high- 
road, or  among  the  green  lanes  and  alleys  of 
merry  England.  You  are  a  scholar,  and  love 
poetry?  Then  here  you  have  it  of  the  finest, 
and  will  be  sad  to  think  that  heaven  had  not 
made  you  a  pedlar. 

"In  days  of  yorr  how  forlunalely  farod 
The  Minstrel  Iwamlerine  on  from  Hall  to  Hall, 
Daronial  Court  or  Royal  ;  i  hoor'd  with  gifts 
Muniticenl,  and  love,  and  Ladies'  praisu; 


THE  MOORS. 


109 


Now  meeting  on  his  road  an  armed  Knight, 

Now  resting  with  a  Pilgrim  by  the  side 

Of  a  clear  brook  ;— beneath  an  Abbey's  roof 

One  evening  sumptuously  lodged;  the  nest 

Humbly,  in  a  religious  Hospital ; 

Or  with  some  merry  Outlaws  of  the  wood; 

Or  haply  shrouded  in  a  Hermit's  cell. 

Him,  sleeping  or  awake,  the  Uobber  spared  ; 

He  walk'd — protected  from  the  sword  of  war 

By  virtue  of  that  sacred  Instrument 

His  Harp,  suspended  at  the  Traveller's  side, 

His  dear  companion  wheresoe'er  he  went, 

Opening  from  Land  to  Land  an  easy  way 

By  melody,  and  by  the  charm  of  verse. 

Yet  not  the  noblest  of  that  honour'd  Race 

Drew  happier,  loftier,  more  empassion'd  thoughts 

From  his  long  journeyings  and  eventful  life. 

Than  this  obscure  Itinerant  had  skill 

To  gather,  ranging  through  the  tamer  ground 

Of  these  our  unimaginative  days  ; 

Both  while  he  trode  the  earth  in  humblest  guise, 

Accoutred  with  his  burden  and  his  stafl"; 

And  now,  when  free  to  move  with  lighter  pace. 

"What  wonder,  then,  if  I,  whose  favourite  School 
Hath  been  the  fields,  the  roads,  and  rural  lanes, 
Look'd  on  this  Guide  with  reverential  love  ? 
Each  with  the  other  pleased,  we  now  pursued 
Our  journey — beneath  favourable  skies. 
Turn  wheresoe'er  we  would,  he  was  a  light 
Unfailing  :  not  a  hamlet  could  we  pass, 
Rarely  a  house,  that  did  not  yield  to  him 
Remembrances;  or  from  his  tongue  call  forth 
Some  way-beguiling  tale. 
— Nor  was  he  loath  to  enter  ragged  huts. 
Huts  where  his  charity  was  blest ;  his  voice 
Heard  as  the  voice  of  an  e.xperienced  friend. 
And,  sometimes,  where  the  Poor  Man  held  dispute 
With  his  own  mind,  unable  to  subdue 
Impatience,  through  inaptnoss  to  perceive 
General  distress  in  his  particular  lot ; 
Or  cherishing  resentment,  or  in  vain 
Strugsjlini;  against  it,  with  a  soul  perplex'd, 
And  finding  in  herself  no  steady  power 
To  draw  the  line  of  comfort  that  divides 
Calamity,  the  chastisement  of  Heaven, 
From  the  injustice  of  our  brother  men  ; 
To  him  appeal  was  made  as  to  a  judge  ; 
Who.  with  an  understandiu'.'  heart,  allay'd 
The  perturbation  ;  listen'd  to  the  plea  ; 
Resolved  the  dubious  point  ;  and  sentence  gave 
So  grounded,  so  applied,  that  it  was  heard 
With  softened  spirit — e'en  when  it  condemn'd." 

What  was  to  hinder  such  a  man — thus  born 
and  thus  bred — with  sucli  a  youth  and  such  a 
prime — from  beins;  in  his  old  age  worthy  of 
•walking  among  the  mountains  with  Words- 
worth, and  descanting 

"On  man,  on  nature,  and  on  human  lifel" 

And  remember  he  was  a.  Scotsman — compatriot 
of  CiiRisTopnEii  NoiiTn. 

What  would  you  rather  have  had  the  Sage 
in  the  Exairsion  to  have  beerf  1  The  Senior 
Fellow  of  a  College  1  A  Headi  A  retired 
Judge  1  An  Ex-Lord  Chancellor  1  A  Na- 
bob? ABankerl  A  Millionaire  1  or,atonce 
to  condescend  on  individuals,  Natus  Consu- 
mere  Fruges,  Esquire  1  or  the  Honourable 
Gustos  Rotulorum  1 

You  have  read,  bright  bold  neophyte,  the 
Song  at  the  Feast  of  Brougham  Castle,  upon 
the  restoration  of  Lord  Clifford,  the  Shepherd, 
to  the  estates  and  honours  of  his  ancestors  1 

"  Who  is  he  that  bounds  with  joy 
On  Carrock's  side,  a  shepherd  boy  I 
No  thoughts  hath  he  but  thoughts  that  pass 
Light  as  the  wind  along  the  grass. 
Can  this  be  He  that  hither  came 
In  secret,  like  a  smother'd  flame'! 
For  whom  such  thoughtful  tears  were  shed 
For  shelter  and  a  poor  man's  bread  1" 

Who  but  the  same  noble  boy  whom  his  high- 
born mother  in  disastrous  days  had  confided 
•when  an  infant  to  the  care  of  a  peasant.  Yet 
there  he  is  no  longer  safe — and 


"The  Boy  must  part  from  Mosedale  eroves 
And  leave  Blencathara's  rug>red  coves, 
And  quit  the  flowers  that  summer  brings 
To  Glenderamakin's  lofty  springs; 
Must  vanish,  and  his  careless  cheer 
Be  turn'd  to  heaviness  and  fear." 

Sir  Launcelot  Threlkeld  shelters  him  till 
again  he  is  free  to  set  his  foot  on  the  moun- 
tains. 

"  Again  he  wanders  forth  at  will. 
And  tends  a  fiock  from  hill  to  hill : 
His  garb  is  humble  ;  ne'er  was  seen 
Such  garb  with  such  a  noble  mien  ; 
Among  the  shepherd  grooms  no  mate 
Hath  he,  a  child  of  strength  and  state." 

So  lives  he  till  he  is  restored — 

"Glad  were  the  vales,  and  every  cottage  hearth; 
The  shepherd-lord  was  honour'd  more  and  more ; 
And,  ages  after  he  was  laid  in  earth, 
'The  good  Lord  CliiTord*  was  the  name  he  bore !" 

Now  mark — that  Poem  has  been  declared  by 
one  and  all  of  the  "  Poets  of  Britain"  to  be 
equal  to  any  thing  in  the  language;  and  its 
greatness  lies  in  the  perfect  truth  of  the 
profound  philosophy  which  so  poetically  de- 
lineates the  education  of  the  naturally  noble 
character  of  Clifford.  Does  he  sink  in  our 
esteem  because  at  the  Feast  of  the  Restora- 
tion he  turns  a  deaf  ear  to  the  fervent  harper 
who  sings, 

"  Happy  day  and  happy  the  hour. 
When  our  shepherd  in  his  power, 
Mounted,  maii'd,  with  lance  and  sword, 
To  his  ancestors  restored, 
Like  a  re-appearing  star, 
Like  a  glory  from  afar. 
First  shall  tiead  the  flock  of  war'?" 

No — his  generous  nature  is  true  to  its  gene- 
rous nurture  ;  and  now  deeply  imbued  with 
the  goodness  he  had  too  long  loved  in  others 
ever  to  forget,  he  appears  noblest  when  show- 
ing himself  faithful  in  his  own  hall  to  the 
"huts  where  poor  men  lie;"  while  we  know 
not,  at  the  solemn  close,  which  life  the  Poet 
has  most  glorified — the  humble  or  the  high — 
whether  the  Lord  did  the  Shepherd  more  en- 
noble, or  the  Shepherd  the  Lord. 

Now,  we  ask,  is  there  any  essential  differ- 
ence between  what  Wordsworth  thus  records 
of  the  high-born  Shepherd-Lord  in  the  Feast 
of  Brougham  Castle,  and  what  he  records  of 
the  low-born  Pedlar  in  the  Excursion  1  None. 
They  are  both  educated  among  the  hills ;  and 
according  to  the  nature  of  their  own  souls  and 
that  of  their  education,  is  the  progressive 
growth  and  ultimate  formation  of  their  cha- 
racter. Both  are  exalted  beings — because  both 
are  wise  and  good — but  to  his  own  coeval  he 
has  given,  besides  eloquence  and  genius, 

"The  vision  and  the  faculty  divine," 
that's 

"  When  years  had  brought  the  philosophic  mind" 

he  might  walk  through  the  dominions  of  the 
Intellect  and  the  Imagination,  a  Sage  and  a 
Teacher. 

Look  into  life,  and  watch  the  growth  of  cha- 
racter. Men  are  not  what  they  seem  to  the 
outward  eye — mere  machines  moving  about 
in  customary  occupations — productive  labour- 
ers of  food  and  wearing  apparel — slaves  from 
morn  to  night  at  taskwork  set  them  by  the 
Wealth  of  Nations.  They  are  the  Children 
of  God.  The  soul  never  sleeps— not  even 
when  its  wearied  body  is  heard  snoring  by 
K 


110 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


people  living  in  the  next  street.  All  the  souls 
now  in  this  world  are  for  ever  awake ;  and 
this  life,  believe  us,  though  in  moral  sadness 
it  has  often  been  rightly  called  so,  is  no  dream. 
In  a  dream  we  have  no  will  of  our  own,  no 
power  over  ourselves;  ourselves  are  not  felt 
to  be  ourselves;  our  familiar  friends  seem 
strangers  from  some  far  off  country  ;  the  dead 
are  alive,  yet  we  wonder  not;  the  laws  of  the 
physical  world  are  suspended,  or  changed,  or 
confused  by  our  fantasy;  Intellect,  Imagina- 
tion, the  Moral  Sense,  Affection,  Passion,  are 
not  possessed  by  us  in  the  same  way  we  pos- 
sess them  out  of  that  mystery :  were  life  a 
Dream,  or  like  a  Dream,  it  would  never  lead 
to  Heaven. 

Again,  then,  we  say  to  you,  look  into  life  and 
watch  the  growth  of  character.  In  a  world 
where  the  ear  cannot  listen  without  hearing 
the  clank  of  chains,  the  soul  may  yet  be  free 
as  if  it  already  inhabited  the  skies.  For  its 
Maker  gave  it  Libeiitt  or  Choice  of  Goon  on 
OF  Evil;  and  if  it  has  chosen  the  good  it  is  a 
King.  All  its  faculties  are  then  fed  on  their 
appropriate  food  provided  for  them  in  nature. 
It  then  knows  where  the  necessaries  and  the 
luxuries  of  its  life  grow,  and  how  they  may  be 
gathered — in  a  still  sunny  region  inaccessible 
to  blight — "no  mildewed  ear  blasting  his 
wholesome  brother."  In  the  beautiful  language 
of  our  friend  Aird — 

"  And  tlioii  shnit  summer  high  in  bliss  upon  the  Hills  of 
God." 

Go,  read  the  Excunsiojr  then — venerate  the 
Pedlaii  —  pity  the  Solitaut  —  respect  the 
PniEST,  and  love  the  Pof.t. 

So  charmed  have  we  been  with  the  sound  of 
our  own  voice — of  all  sounds  on  earth  the 
sweetest  surely  to  our  cars — and,  therefore,  we 
so  dearly  love  the  monologue,  and  from  the 
dialogue  turn  averse,  impatient  of  him  ycleped 
the  interlocutor,  who,  like  a  shallow  brook, 
will  keep  prattling  and  babbling  on  between 
the  still  deep  pools  of  our  discourse,  which 
nature  feeds  with  frequent  waterfalls — so 
charmed  have  we  been  with  the  sound  of  our 
own  voice,  that  scarcely  conscious  the  while 
of  more  than  a  gentle  ascent  along  the  sloping 
.sward  of  a  rural  Sabbath  day's  journey,  we 
perceive  now  that  we  must  have  achieved  a 
Highland  league — five  miles — of  rough  uphill 
W'ork,  and  are  standing  tiptoe  on  the  Mountain- 
top.  True  that  his  altitude  is  not  very  great — 
somewhere,  we  should  suppose,  between  two 
and  three  thousand  feet — much  higher  than  the 
Pentlands — somewhat  higher  than  the  Ochils 
— a  middle-sized  Grampian.  Great  painters 
and  poets  know  that  power  lies  not  in  mere 
measurable  bulk.  Atlas,  it  is  tnite,  is  a  giant, 
and  he  has  need  to  be  so,  supporting  the  globe. 
So  is  Andes ;  but  his  strength  has  never  been 
put  to  proof,  as  he  carries  but  clouds.  The 
Cordilleras — but  we  must  not  be  personal — so 
suffice  it  to  say,  that  soul,  not  size,  equall)'  in 
mountains  and  in  men,  is  and  inspires  the  true 
.sublime.  Mont  Blanc  might  be  as  big  again; 
but  what  then,  if  without  his  glaciers  1 

These  mountains  are  neither  immense  nor 
enormous — nor  are  there  any  such  in  the 
British  Isles.  Look  for  a  few  of  the  highest  on 
Riddell's  ingenious  Scale — in  Scotland  Ben- 


'  nevis,  Helvellj-n  in   England,  in  Ireland  the 
Reeks  ;  and  you  see  that  they  are  mere  mole- 
hills  to  Chimborazo.     Nevertheless,  they  are 
the  hills  of  the  Eagle.     And  think  ye  not  that 
an  Eagle  glorifies  the  sky  more  than  a  Condor  1 
That  Vulture — for  Vulture  he  is — flies  league- 
high — the  Golden  Eagle  is  satisfied  to  poise 
himself  half  a  mile   above  the   loch,  which, 
judged  by  the  rapidity  of  its  long  river's  flow, 
may  be  based  a  thousand  feet  or  more  above 
the  level  of  the  sea.  From  that  height  methinks 
the  Bird-Royal,  with  the  golden  eye,  can  see 
the  rising  and  the  setting  sun,  and  his  march 
on  the  meridian,  without  a  telescope.     If  ever 
he  fly  by  night — and  we  think  we  have  seen  a 
shadow  passing  the  stars  that  was  on  the  wing 
of  life — he  must  be  a  rare  astronomer. 
"Ilisrh  from  the  s^uinmit  of  a  craggy  rliff 
Ilune  o'er  the  dpe|>,  such  as  amazing  frown 
On  utmost  Hilda's  shore,  whose  lonely  race 
Ke.'ien  the  setting  sun  to  Indian  worlds, 
The  Royal  Eagle  rears  his  vigorous  young, 
Strong-pounced  and  burning  with  paternal  fire. 
Now  fit  to  raise  a  kingdom  of  their  own 
He  drives  Iheni  from  his  fort,  the  towering  seat 
For  ages  of  his  empire  ;  which  in  peace 
I'nstain'd  he  holds,  while  many  a  league  to  sea 
He  wings  his  course,  and  preys  in  distant  isles." 

Do  you  long  for  wings,  and  envy  the  Eaglet 
Not  if  you  be  wise.  Alas  !  such  is  human 
nature,  that  in  one  year's  time  the  novelty  of 
pinions  Avould  be  over,  and  j'ou  would  skim 
undclighted  the  edges  of  the  clouds.  Why  do 
we  think  it  a  glorious  thing  to  fly  from  the 
summit  of  some  inland  mountain  away  to  dis- 
tant isles  1  Because  our  feet  are  bound  to  the 
dust.  We  enjoy  the  eagle's  flight  far  more 
than  the  eagle  himself  driving  headlong  before 
the  storm;  for  imagination  dallies  with  the 
unknown  power,  and  the  wings  that  are  denied 
to  our  bodies  are  expanded  in  our  souls.  Sub- 
lime are  the  circles  the  sun-staring  creature 
traces  in  the  heavens,  to  us  who  lie  stretched 
among  the  heather  bloom.  Could  we  do  the 
same,  we  should  still  be  longing  to  pierce 
through  the  atmosphere  to  some  other  planet; 
and  an  elevation  of  leagues  above  the  snows 
of  the  Himalayas  would  not  satisfy  our  aspira- 
tions. But  we  can  calculate  the  distances  of 
the  stars,  and  are  happy  as  Galileo  in  his 
dungeon. 

Yet  an  Eagle  we  are,  and  therefore  proud  of 
You  our  Scottish  mountains,  as  j'ou  are  of  Vs. 
Stretch  yourself  up  to  your  full  height  as  we 
now  do  to  ours — and  let  "Andes,  giant  of  the 
Western  Star,"  but  dare  to  look  at  us,  and  we 
will  tear  the  "meteor  standard  to  the  winds 
unfurled"  from  his  cloudy  hands.  There  you 
stand — and  were  j-ou  to  rear  your  summits 
much  higher  into  heaven  you  would  alarm  the 
hidden  stars. 

Yet  we  have  seen  you  higher — but  it  was  in 
storm.  In  calm  like  this,  yon  do  well  to  look 
beautiful — your  solemn  altitude  suits  the  sunny 
season,  and  the  peaceful  sky.  But  when  the 
thunder  at  mid-day  would  hide  your  heads  in  a 
night  of  cloud,  you  thrust  them  through  the 
blackness,  and  show  them  to  the  glens,  crown- 
ed with  fire. 

Arc  they  a  sea  of  mountains  !  No — they  are 
mountains  in  a  sea.  And  what  a  sea !  M^ives 
of  water,  when  at  the  prodigious,  are  never 
higher  than  the  foretop  of  a  man-of-war.  Waves 


THE  MOORS. 


Ill 


of  vapour — they  alone  are  seen  flying  inoun- 
tains  high — dashing,  but  howling  not — and  in 
their  silent  ascension,  all  held  together  by  the 
same  spirit,  but  perpetually  changing  its 
beautiful  array,  where  order  seems  ever  and 
anon  to  come  in  among  disorder,  there  is  a 
grandeur  that  settles  down  in  the  soul  of 
youthful  poet  roaming  in  delirium  among  the 
mountain  glooms,  and  "pacifies  the  fever  of 
his  heart." 

Call  not  now  these  vapours  waves  ;  for 
movement  there  is  none  among  the  ledges,  and 
ridges,  and  roads,  and  avenues,  and  galleries, 
and  groves,  and  houses,  and  churches,  and 
castles,  and  fairy  palaces — all  framed  of  mist. 
Far  up  among  and  above  that  wondrous  re- 
gion, through  which  you  hear  voices  of  water- 
falls deepening  the  silence,  behold  hundreds 
of  mountain-tops — blue,  purple,  violet, — for 
the  sun  is  shining  straight  on  some  and  aslant 
on  others — and  on  those  not  at  all ;  nor  can 
the  shepherd  at  your  side,  though  he  has  lived 
among  them  all  his  life,  till  after  long  ponder- 
ing tell  you  the  names  of  those  most  familiar 
to  him  ;  for  they  seem  to  have  all  interchanged 
sites  and  altitudes,  and  Black  Benhun  himself, 
the  Eagle-breeder,  looks  so  serenely  in  his 
rainbow,  that  you  might  almost  mistake  him 
for  Ben  Louey  or  the  Hill  of  Hinds. 

Have  you  not  seen  sunsets  in  which  the 
mountains  were  embedded  in  masses  of  clouds 
all  burning  and  bl.izing — yes,  blazing — with 
unimaginable  mixtures  of  all  the  colours  that 
ever  were  born — intensifying  into  a  glory  that 
absolutely  became  insupportable  to  the  soul 
as  insufierable  to  the  eyes — and  that  left  the 
eyes  for  hours  after  you  had  retreated  from 
the  supernatural  scene,  even  when  shut,  all 
filled  with  floating  films  of  cross-lights,  cutting 
the  sky  imagery  into  gorgeous  fragments  1  And 
were  not  the  mountains  of  such  sunsets,  whe- 
ther they  were  of  land  or  of  cloud,  sufficiently 
vast  for  your  utmost  capacities  and  powers  of 
delight  and  joy  longing  to  commune  with  the 
Region  then  felt  to  be  in  very  truth  Heaven  1 
Nor  could  the  spirit,  entranced  in  admiration, 
conceive  at  that  moment  any  Heaven  beyond — 
while  the  senses  themselves  seemed  to  have 
had  given  them  a  revelation,  that  as  it  was 
created  could  be  felt  but  by  an  immortal  spirit. 

It  elevates  our  being  to  be  in  the  body  near 
the  sky — at  once  on  earth  and  in  Heaven.  In 
the  body  1  Yes — we  feel  at  once  fettered  and 
free.  In  Time  we  wear  our  fetters,  and  heavy 
though  they  be,  and  painfully  riveted  on,  sel- 
dom do  we  welcome  Death  coming  to  strike 
them  off — but  groan  at  sight  of  the  executioner. 
In  eternity  we  believe  that  all  is  spiritual — and 
in  that  belief,  which  doubt  sometimes  shakes 
but  to  prove  that  its  foundation  lies  rooted  far 
down  below  all  earthquakes,  endurable  is  the 
sound  of  dust  to  dust.  Poets  speak  of  the  spirit, 
while  yet  in  the  flesh,  blending,  mingling,  being 
absorbed  in  the  great  forms  of  the  outward  uni- 
verse, and  they  speak  as  if  such  absorption 
were  celestial  and  divine.  But  is  not  this  a 
material  creed  ?  Let  Imagination  beware  how 
she  seeks  to  glorify  the  objects  of  the  senses, 
and  having  glorified  them,  to  elevate  them  into 
a  kindred  being  Avith  our  own,  exalting  them 
that  we  may  claim  with  them  that  kindred  being, 


as  if  we  belonged  to  them  and  not  they  to  us- 
forgetting  that  they  are  made  to  perish,  we  to 
live  for  ever ! 

But  let  us  descend  the  mountain  by  the  side 
of  this  torrent.  What  a  splendid  series  of 
translucent  pools  !  We  carry  the  Excursion 
in  our  pocket,  for  the  use  of  our  friends ;  but 
our  presentation  copy  is  here — we  have  gotten 
it  by  heart.  And  it  does  our  heart  good  to 
hear  ourselves  recite.  Listen  ye  Naiads  to 
the  famous  picture  of  the  Ram  : — 

"  Thus  havinw  reaeh'd  a  bridge,  that  overarch'd 
The  hasty  rivulet,  where  it  lay  becalm'd 
In  a  deep  pool,  by  happy  chance  we  saw 
A  twofold  image  ;  on  a  grassy  bank 
A  snow-white  Ram,  and  in  the  crystal  flood 
Another  and  the  same  !     Most  beautiful 
On  the  green  turf,  with  his  imperial  front 
i^haggy  and  bold,  and  wreathed  horns  superb, 
The  breathing  creature  stood  ;  as  beautiful 
Beneath  him,  show'd  his  shadowy  counterpart ; 
Each  had  his  glowing  mountains,  each  his  sky, 
And  each  seem'd  centre  of  his  own  fair  world. 
Antipodes  unconscious  of  each  other. 
Yet,  in  partition,  with  their  several  spheres, 
Blended  in  ptyfect  stillness  to  our  sight. 
Ah !  what  a  pity  were  it  to  disperse 
Or  to  disturb  so  fair  a  spectacle. 
And  yet  a  breath  can  do  it." 

Oh  !  that  the  Solitarj-,  and  the  Pedlar,  and 
the  Poet,  and  the  Priest  and  his  Lady,  were 
here  to  see  a  sight  more  glorious  far  than  that 
illustrious  and  visionary  Ram.  Two  Christo- 
pher Norths — as  Highland  chieftains — in  the 
Royal  Tartan — one  burning  in  the  air — the 
other  in  the  water — two  stationary  meteors, 
each  seeming  native  to  its  own  element !  This 
setting  the  heather,  that  the  linn  on  fire — this 
a-blaze  with  war,  that  tempered  into  truce; 
while  the  Sun,  astonied  at  the  spectacle,  nor 
knowing  the  refulgent  substance  from  the 
resplendent  shadow,  bids  the  clouds  lie  still 
in  heaven,  and  the  winds  all  hold  their  breath, 
that  exulting  nature  may  be  permitted  for  a 
little  while  to  enjoy  the  miracle  she  unawares 
has  wrought — alas  !  gone  as  she  gazes,  and 
gone  for  ever]  Our  bonnet  has  tumbled  into 
the  Pool — and  Christopher — like  the  Ram  in 
the  Excursion — stands  shorn  of , his  beams — 
no  better  worth  looking  at  than  the  late  Laird 
of  Macnab. 

Now,  since  the  truth  must  be  told,  that  was 
but  a  Flight  of  Fancy — and  our  apparel  is 
more  like  that  of  a  Lowland  Quaker  than  a 
Highland  chief.  'Tis  all  of  a  snutfy  brown — 
an  excellent  colour  for  hiding  the  dirt.  Sin- 
gle-breasted our  coatee — and  we  are  in  shorts. 
Were  our  name  to  be  imposed  by  our  hat,  it 
would  be  Sir  Cloudesly  Shovel.  On  our  back 
a  wallet — and  in  our  hand  the  Crutch.  And 
thus,  not  without  occasional  alarm  to  the  cat- 
tle, though  we  hurry  no  man's,  we  go  stalking 
along  the  sward  and  swinging  across  the 
stream,  and  leaping  over  the  quagmires — by 
no  means  unlike  that  extraordinary  pedestrian 
who  has  been  accompanying  us  for  the  last 
half  hour,  far  overhead  up-by  yonder,  as  if  he 
meant  mischief;  but  he  will  find  that  we  are 
up  to  a  trick  or  two,  and  not  easily  to  be  done 
brown  by  a  native,  a  Cockney  of  Cloud-Land, 
a  long-legged  awkward  fellow  with  a  head 
like  a  dragon,  and  proud  of  his  red  plush, 
in  that  country  called  thunder-and-lightning 
breeches,  hot  very,  one  would  think,  in  such 
sultry  weather — but  confound  us   if  he  has 


113 


EECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


not  this  moment  stript  them  off,  and  be  not 
pursuing  his  journey  in  puris  natwaltbus — yes, 
as  naked  as  the  minute  he  was  born — our  Sha- 
dow on  the  Clouds ! 

The  Picture  of  the  Ram  has  been  declared 
by  sumphs  in  search  of  the  sublime  to  border 
on  the  Burlesque.  They  forget  that  a  sumph 
may  just  as  truly  be  said  to  border  on  a  sage. 
All  things  in  heaven  and  on  earth,  mediately 
and  immediately,  border  on  one  another — much 
depends  on  the  way  you  look  at  them — and 
Poets,  who  are  strange  creatures,  often  love 
to  enjoy  and  display  their  power  by  bringing 
the  burlesque  into  the  region  of  the  sublime. 
Of  what  breed  was  the  Tup?  Cheviot,  Lei- 
cester, Southdown  1  Had  he  gained  the  Cup 
at  the  Great  North  Show?  We  believe  not, 
and  that  his  owner  saw  in  him  simply  a  fine 
specimen  of  an  ordinary  breed — a  shapely 
and  useful  animal.  In  size  he  was  not  to 
be  named  on  the  same  day  with  the  famous 
Ram  of  Derby,  "  whose  tail  was  made  a  rope, 
sir,  to  toll  the  market-bell."  Jasi5n  would  have 
thought  nothing  of  him  compared  with  the 
Golden  Fleece.  The  Sun  sees  a  supcrinr  sire 
of  flocks  as  he  enters  Aries.  Sorry  are  we  to 
say  it,  but  the  truth  must  be  spoken,  he  was 
somewhat  bandy-legged,  and  rather  coarse  in 
wool.  But  heaven,  earth,  air,  and  water  con- 
spired to  glorify  him,  as  the  Poet  and  his  friends 
chanced  to  come  upon  him  at  tlie  Pool,  and, 
more  than  them  all  united,  the  Poet's  own  soul ; 
and  a  sheep  that  would  not  have  sold  for  fifty 
shillings,  becatne  Lord  Paramount  of  two 
worlds,  his  regal  mind  all  the  time  uncon- 
scious of  its  empiry,  and  engrossed  with  the 
thought  of  a  few  score  silly  ewes. 

Seldom  have  Ave  seen  so  serene  a  day.  It 
seems  to  have  lain  in  one  and  the  same  spirit 
over  all  the  Highlands.  Wc  have  been  wan- 
dering since  sunrise,  and  'tis  now  near  sunset; 
yet  not  an  hour  without  a  visible  heaven  in  all 
the  Lochs.  In  the  pure  element  overflowing 
so  many  spacious  vales  and  glens  profound, 
the  great  and,  stern  objects  of  nature  have  all 
day  long  been  looking  more  sublime  or  more 
beautiful  in  the  reflected  shadows,  invested 
with  one  imiversal  peace.  The  momentary 
evanescence  of  all  that  imagery  at  a  breath 
touches  us  with  the  thought  that  all  it  repre- 
sents, steadfast  as  seems  its  endurance,  will 
as  utterly  pass  away.  Such  visions  when 
gazed  on  in  that  wondrous  depth  and  purity  on 
a  still  slow-moving  day,  always  inspire  some 
such  feeling  as  this  ;  and  we  sigh  to  thinic  how 
transitory  must  be  all  things,  when  the  setting 
sun  is  seen  to  sink  behind  the  mountain,  and 
all  the  golden  pomp  at  the  same  instant  to 
evanish  from  the  Loch. 

Evening  is  preparing  to  let  fall  her  shades — 
and  Nature,  cool,  fresh,  and  unwearied,  is  lay- 
ing herself  down  for  a  few  hours'  sleep.  There 
had  been  a  long  strong  summer  drought,  and  a 
"week  ago  you  would  have  pitied — absolutely 
pitied  the  poor  Highlands.  You  missed  the 
cottage-girl  Avith  hor  pitcher  at  the  well  in  the 
brae,  for  the  spring  scarcely  trickled,  and  the 
water-cresses  were  yellow  before  their  time. 
Many  a  dancing  hill-stream  Avas  dead — only 
here  and  there  one  stronger  than  her  sisters 
attempted  a  pas-seul  over  the  shclving»rocks ; 


but  all  choral  movements  and  melodies  for- 
sook the  mountains,  still  and  silent  as  so  much 
painted  cauA'as.  Waterfalls  first  tamed  their 
thunder,  then  listened  alarmed  to  their  own 
echoes.  Availed  themselves  away  into  diminu- 
tive murmurs,  gasped  for  life,  died,  and  AA'ere 
buried  at  the  feet  of  the  green  slippery  preci- 
pices. Tarns  sank  into  moors  ;  and  there  was 
the  voice  of  weeping  heard  and  Ioav  lament 
among  the  Avater-lilies.  Ay,  millions  of  pretty 
flowrets  died  in  their  infancy,  even  on  their 
mother's  breast;  the  bee  fainted  in  the  desert 
for  Avant  of  the  honey-dcAA*,  and  the  ground- 
cells  of  industry  Avere  hushed  below  the  hea- 
ther. Cattle  lay  lean  on  the  brownnessofa 
hundred  hills,  and  the  hoof  of  the  red-deer  lost 
its  fleetness.  Along  the  shores  of  lochs  great 
stones  appeared  within  Avhat  for  centuries  had 
been  the  lowest  Avater-mark ;  and  Avhole  bays, 
once  bright  and  beautiful  with  reed-pointed 
Avavelets,  became  sAvamps,  cracked  and 
seamed,  or  rustling  in  the  aridity  Avith  a  useless 
crop,  to  the  sugh  of  the  passing  Avind.  On  the 
shore  of  the  sea  alone  you  beheld  no  change. 
The  tides  ebbed  and  ilowed  as  before — the 
small  billoAA's  racing  over  the  sih-er  sands  to 
the  same  goal  of  shells,  or  climbing  up  to  the 
same  wild-floAvers  that  bathe  the  foundation  of 
some  old  castle  belonging  to  the  ocean. 

But  the  windows  of  heaven  were  opened — 
and,  like  giants  refreshed  Avith  mountain-dew, 
the  rivers  flung  themselves  over  the  cliffs  with 
roars  of  thunder.  The  autumnal  Avoods  are 
fresher  than  those  of  summer.  The  mild  har- 
ATst-moon  Avill  yet  repair  the  evil  done  by  the 
outrageous  sun ;  and,  in  the  gracious  after- 
groAvth,  the  green  earth  far  and  Avide  rejoices 
as  in  spring.  Like  people  thai  have  hidden 
themselves  in  caves  Avhen  their  native  land 
was  oppressed,  out  gush  the  torrents,  and  de- 
scend Aviih  songs  to  the  plain.  The  hill-country 
is  itself  again  when  it  hears  the  A-oice  of 
streams.  Magnificent  army  of  mists  !  Avhose 
array  encompasses  islands  of  the  sea,  and  who 
still,  as  thy  glorious  vanguard  keeps  deploying 
among  the  glens,  roUest  on  in  silence  more 
sublime  than  the  trampling  of  the  feet  of 
horses,  or  the  sound  of  the  Avheels  of  chariots, 
to  the  heath-coAered  mountains  of  Scotland,  we 
bid  thee  hail ! 

In  all  our  Avanderings  through  the  Highlands, 
towards  night  Ave  have  ahvays  found  ourselves 
at  home.  What  though  no  human  dwelling 
Avas  at  hand?  We  cared  not — for  we  could 
find  a  bed-room  among  the  casual  inclinations 
of  rocks,  and  of  all  curtains  the  Avild-brier 
forms  itself  into  the  most  gracefully-festooned 
draperies,  letting  in  green  light  alone  from  the 
intercepted  stars.  Many  a  cave  we  knoAv  of — 
cool  by  day,  and  Avarm  by  night — hoAv  they 
happen  to  be  so,  we  cannot  tell — AA-here  no 
man  but  ourselves  CA'cr  slept  or  ever  will 
sleep;  and  sometimes,  on  startling  a  doc  at 
evening  in  her  thicket,  Ave  have  lain  down  in 
her  lair,  and  in  our  slumbers  heard  the  rain 
pattering  on  the  rotifing  birk-troe,  but  felt  not 
one  drop  on  our  face,  till  at  daAvning  avc  struck 
a  shower  of  diamonds  from  the  fragrant 
tresses.  But  to-night  we  shall  not  need  to  sleep 
among  the  sylvans;  for  our  Tail  haf.  pitched 
our  Tent  on  the  Moor — and  is  now  SAveeping 


THE  MOORS. 


113 


the  mountain  with  telescope  for  sight  of  our 
descending  feet.  Hark  !  signal-gun  and  bag- 
pipe hail  our  advent,  and  the  Pyramid  bright- 
ens in  its  joy,  independent  of  the  sunlight,  that 
has  left  but  one  streak  in  the  sky. 


FLIGHT  FIRST.— GLEN-ETIVE. 

Yes  !  all  we  have  to  do  is  to  let  down  their 
lids — to  will  that  our  eyes  shall  see — and,  lo  ! 
there  it  is — a  creation  !  Day  dawns,  and  for 
our  delight  in  soft  illumination  from  the  dim 
obscure  floats  slowly  up  a  visionary  loch — 
island  after  island  evolving  itself  into  settled 
stateliness  above  its  trembling  shadow,  till, 
from  the  overpowering  beauty  of  the  wide  con- 
fusion of  woods  and  waters,  we  seek  relief,  but 
find  none,  in  gazing  on  the  sky ;  for  the  east  is 
in  all  the  glory  of  sunrise,  and  the  heads  and 
the  names  of  the  mountains  are  uncertain 
among  the  gorgeouS  colouring  of  the  clouds. 
Would  that  we  were  a  painter  !  Oh  !  how  we 
should  dash  on  the  day  and  interlace  it  with 
night!  That  chasm  should  be  filled  with  en- 
during gloom,  thicker  and  thicker,  nor  the  sun 
himself  suff"ered  to  assuage  the  sullen  spirit, 
now  lowering  and  threatening  there,  as  if  por- 
tentous of  earthquake.  Danger  and  fear  should 
be  made  to  hang  together  for  ever  on  those 
cliffs,  and  halfway  up  the  precipice  be  fixed 
the  restless  cloud  ascending  from  the  abyss,  so 
that  in  imagination  you  could  not  choose  but 
hear  the  cataract.  The  Shadows  should  seem 
to  be  stalking  away  like  evil  spirits  before 
angels  of  light — for  at  our  bidding  the  Splen- 
dours should  prevail  against  them,  deploying 
from  the  gates  of  Heaven  beneath  the  banners 
of  morn.  Yet  the  whole  picture  should  be 
harmonious  as  a  hymn — as  a  hymn  at  once 
sublime  and  sweet — serene  and  solemn — nor 
should  it  not  be  felt  as  even  cheerful — and 
sometimes  as  if  there  were  about  to  be  merri- 
ment in  Nature's  heart — for  the  multitude  of 
the  isles  should  rejoice — and  the  new-woke 
waters  look  as  if  they  were  waiting  for  the 
breezes  to  enliven  them  into  waves,  and  wearied 
of  rest  to  be  longing  for  the  motion  already 
beginning  to  rustle  by  fits  along  the  silvan 
shores.  Perhaps  a  deer  or  two — but  we  have 
opened  a  corner  of  the  fringed  curtains  of  our 
eyes — the  idea  is  gone — and  Turner  or  Thom- 
son must  transfer  from  our  paper  to  his  can- 
vas the  imperfect  out-line — for  it  is  no  more 
— and  make  us  a  present  of  the  finished  pic- 
ture. 

Strange  that  with  all  our  love  of  nature,  and 
of  art,  we  never  were  a  Painter.  True  that 
in  boyhood  we  were  no  contemptible  hand  at 
a  Lion  or  a  Tiger — and  sketches  by  us  of  such 
cats  springing  or  preparing  to  spring  in  keela- 
vine,  dashed  off  some  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago, 
might  well  make  Edwin  Landseer  stare.  Even 
yet  we  are  a  sort  of  Salvator  Rosa  at  a  savage 
scene,  and  our  black-lead  pencil  heaps  up  con- 
fused shatterings  of  rocks,  and  flings  a  moun- 
tainous region  into  convulsions,  as  if  an  earth- 
quake heaved,  in  a  way  that  in  no  canny,  making 
people  shudder  as  if  something  had  gone 
15 


wrong  with  this  planet  of  ours,  and  creation 
were  falling  back  into  chaos.  But  we  love 
scenes  of  beautiful  repose  too  profoundly  ever 
to  dream  of  "  transferring  them  to  canvas." 
Such  employment  would  be  felt  by  us  to  be 
desecration — though  we  look  with  delight  on 
the  work  when  done  by  others — the  picture 
without  the  process — the  product  of  genius 
without  thought  of  its  mortal  instruments.  We 
work  in  words,  and  words  are,  in  good  truth, 
images,  feelings,  thoughts;  and  of  these  the 
outer  world,  as  well  as  the  inner,  is  composed, 
let  materialists  say  what  they  will.  Prose  is 
poetry — we  have  proved  that  to  the  satisfaction 
of  all  mankind.  Look!  we  beseech  you — how 
a  little  Loch  seems  to  rise  up  with  its  tall  he- 
ronry— a  central  isle — and  all  its  silvan  braes, 
till  it  lies  almost  on  a  level  with  the  floor  of  our 
Cave,  from  which  in  three  minutes  we  could 
hobble  on  our  crutch  down  the  inclining  green- 
sward to  the  Bay  of  Waterlilies,  and  in  that 
canoe  be  afloat  among  the  Swans.  All  birches 
— not  any  other  kind  of  tree — except  a  few 
pines,  on  whose  tops  the  large  nests  repose — 
and  here  and  there  a  still  bird  standing  as  if 
asleep.     What  a  place  for  Roes  ! 

The  great  masters,  were  their  eyes  to  fall 
on  our  idle  words,  might  haply  smile — not 
contemptuously — on  our  ignorance  of  art — 
but  graciously  on  our  knowledge  of  nature. 
All  we  have  to  do,  then,  is  to  learn  the  theory 
and  practice  of  art — and  assuredly  we  should 
forthwith  set  about  doing  so,  had  we  any  rea- 
sonable prospect  of  living  long  enough  to  open 
an  exhibition  of  pictures  from  our  own  easel. 
As  it  is,  we  must  be  contented  with  that  Gallery, 
richer  than  the  Louvre,  which  our  imagination 
has  furnished  with  masterpieces  beyond  all 
price  or  purchase — many  of  them  touched  with 
her  own  golden  finger,  the  rest  the  work  of 
high  but  not  superior  hands.  Imagination,  who 
limns  in  air,  has  none  of  those  difficulties  to 
contend  with  that  always  beset,  and  often  bafiie, 
artists  in  oils  or  waters.  At  a  breath  she  can 
modify,  alter,  obliterate,  or  restore  ;  at  a  breath 
she  can  colour  vacuity  with  rainbow  hues — 
crown  the  cliff  with  its  castle — swing  the  draw- 
bridge over  the  gulf  profound — through  a 
night  of  woods  roll  the  river  along  on  its  moon- 
lit reach — by  fragmentary  cinctures  of  mist 
and  cloud,  so  girdle  one  mountain  that  it  has 
the  power  of  a  hundred — giant  rising  above 
giant,  far  and  wide,  as  if  the  mighty  multitude, 
in  magnificent  and  triumphant  disorder,  were 
indeed  scaling  heaven. 

To  speak  more  prosaically,  every  true  and 
accepted  lover  of  nature  regards  her  with  a 
painter's  as  well  as  a  poet's  eye.  He  breaks 
not  down  any  scene  rudely,  and  with  "many 
an  oft-repeated  stroke ;"  but  unconsciously  and 
insensibly  he  transfigures  into  Wholes,  and  al! 
day  long,  from  morn  till  dewy  eve,  he  is  pre 
ceded,  as  he  walks  along,  by  landscapes  retir 
ing  in  their  perfection,  one  and  all  of  them  the 
birth  of  his  own  inspired  spirit.  All  non-es- 
sentials do  of  themselves  drop  off  and  disap. 
pear — all  the  characteristics  of  the  scenery 
range  themselves  round  a  centre  recognised 
by  the  inner  sense  that  cannot  err — and  thus 
it  is  that  "  beauty  pitches  her  tents  before  him" 
— that  sul^liraity  companions  the  pilgrim  in  ike 
k2 


114 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


waste  wilderness — and  grandeur  for  his  sake 
keeps  slowly  sailing  or  sealing  in  the  clouds. 
With  such  pictures  has  our  Gallery  been  so 
thickly  hung  round  for  many  years,  that  we 
have  often  thought  there  was  not  room  for  one 
other  single  frame ;  yet  a  vacant  space  has 
always  been  found  for  every  new  chef-d'ceuvre 
that  came  to  add  itself  to  our  collection — and 
the  light  from  that  cupola  so  distributes  itself 
that  it  falls  wherever  it  is  wanted — wherever 
it  is  wanted  not  how  tender  the  shadow!  or 
how  solemn  the  gloom  ! 

Why,  we  are  now  in  Glen-Etive — and  sitting 
with  our  sketch  book  at  the  mouth  of  our 
Tent.     Our  oft-repeated  passionate  prayer, 

"  Oh,  for  a  lodge  in  some  vast  wildprness !" 
has  once  more,  after  more  than  twenty  years' 
absence,  in  this  haunt  of  our  fanciful  youth 
and  imaginative  manhood,  been  granted,  and 
Christopher,  he  thinks,  could  again  bound 
along  these  cliffs  like  a  deer.  Ay,  wellnigh 
quarter  of  a  century  has  elapsed  since  we 
pitched  this  selfsame  snow-white  Tent  amid 
the  purple  heather,  by  the  Linn  of  Dee.  How 
fleetly  goes,  winnowing  on  the  air,  even 
the  weariest  waving  of  Time's  care-laden 
wings  !  A  few  yellow  weather-stains  are  on 
the  canvas — but  the  pole  is  yet  sound — or 
call  it  rather  mast — for  we  have  hoisted  our 
topgallant, 

"And  lo!  the  silver  cross,  to  Scotland  dear," 
languidly  lifts  itself  up,  an  ineffectual  streamer, 
in  the  fitful  morning  breezes ! 

Bold  son,  or  bright  daughter  of  England ! 
hast  thou  ever  seen  a  Scottish  Tiihissil? 
What  height  are  you — Captain  of  the  Gren- 
adier Guards]  "Six  feet  four  on  my  stocking 
soles."  Poo — a  dwarf!  Stand  up  with  your 
back  to  that  stalk.  Your  head  docs  not  reach 
above  his  waist — he  hangs  high  over  you — 
"  his  radious  croun  of  rubies."  There's  a 
Flower !  dear  to  Lady  Nature  above  all  others, 
saving  and  excepting  the  Rose,  and  he  is  the 
Rose's  husband — the  Guardian  Genii  of  the 
land  consecrated  the  Union,  and  it  has  been 
blest.  Eyeing  the  sun  like  an  angry  star  that 
will  not  suffer  eclipse  either  from  light  or 
shadow — but  burns  proudly — fiercely — in  its 
native  lustre — storm-brightened,  and  undi- 
shevelled  by  the  tempest  in  which  it  swings. 
See,  it  stoops  beneath  the  blast  within  reach 
of  your  hand.  Grasp  it  ere  it  recoil  aloft;  and 
your  hand  will  be  as  if  it  had  crushed  a  sleep- 
ing wasp-swarm.  But  you  cannot  crush  it — 
to  do  that  would  require  a  giant  with  an  iron 
glove.  Then  let  it  alone  to  dally  with  the  wind, 
and  the  sun,  and  the  rain,  and  the  snow — all 
alike  dear  to  its  spears  and  rubies ;  and  as 
you  look  at  the  armed  lustre,  you  will  sea  a 
beautiful  emblem  and  a  stately  of  a  people's 
warlike  peace.  The  stalk  indeed  is  slender, 
but  it  sways  without  danger  of  breaking  in  the 
blast;  in  the  calm  it  reposes  as  gently  as  the 
gowan  at  its  root.  The  softest  leaf  that  en- 
folds in  silk  the  sweetest  flower  of  the  garden, 
not  greener  than  those  that  sting  not  if  but 
tenderly  you  touch  them,  for  they  are  green  as 
the  garments  of  the  Fairies  that  dance  by 
iQOonlight  round  the  Symbol  of  old  Scotland, 
jmd  unchristeued  creatures  though   they  the 


Fairies  be,  they  pray  heaven  to  let  fall  on  the 
AwFCL  Thrissil  all  the  health  and  happiness 
that  are  in  the  wholesome  stars. 

The  dawn  is  softly — slowly — stealing  upon 
day;  for  the  uprisen  sun,  though  here  the 
edge  of  his  disc  as  yet  be  invisible,  is  diffusing 
abroad  "  the  sweet  hour  of  prime,"  and  all  the 
eastern  region  is  tinged  with  crimson,  faint 
and  fine  as  that  which  sleeps  within  the 
wreaths  of  the  sea-sounding  shells.  Hark  ! 
the  eagle's  earliest  cry,  yet  in  his  eyry.  An- 
other hour,  and  he  and  his  giant  mate  will  be 
seen  spirally  ascending  the  skies,  in  many  a 
glorious  gyration,  tutoring  their  offspring  to 
dally  with  ihe  sunshine,  that  when  their  plumes 
are  stronger,  they  may  dally  with  the  storm. 
O  Forest  of  Dalness!  how  sweet  is  thy  name! 
Hundreds  of  red-deer  are  now  lying  half- 
asleep  among  the  fern  and  heather,  with  their 
antlers,  could  our  eyes  now  behold  them, 
motionless  as  the  birch-tree  branches  with 
which  they  are  blended  in  their  lair.  At  the 
signal-belling  of  their  king,  a  hero  uncon- 
quered  in  a  hundred  fights,  the  whole  herd 
rises  at  once  like  a  grove,  and  with  their  state- 
ly heads  lifted  alofl  on  the  weather-gleam, 
snuff  the  sweet  scent  of  the  morning  air,  far 
and  wide  surcharged  with  the  honey-dew  yet 
unmelting  on  the  heather,  and  eye  with  the 
looks  of  liberty  the  glad  daylight  that  mantles 
the  Black  Mount  with  a  many-coloured  gar- 
ment. Ha  !  the  first  plunge  of  the  salmon  in 
the  Rowan-tree  Pool.  There  again  he  shoots 
into  the  air,  white  as  silver,  fresh  run  from 
the  sea  !  For  Loch-Etive,  you  must  know,  is 
one  of  the  many  million  arms  of  Ocean,  and 
bright  now  are  rolling  in  the  billows  of  the 
far-heaving  tide.  Music  meet  for  such  a  mora 
and  such  mountains.  Straight  stretches  the 
glen  for  leagues,  and  then  bending  through  the 
blue  gloom,  seems  to  wind  away  with  one 
sweep  into  infinitude.  The  Great  Glen  of 
Scotland — Glen-More  itself — is  not  grander. 
But  the  Great  Glen  of  Scotland  is  yet  a  living 
forest.  Glen-Etive  has  few  woods  or  none — 
and  the  want  of  them  is  sublime.  For  cen- 
turies ago  pines  and  oaks  in  the  course  of 
nature  all  perished;  and  they  exist  now  but  in 
tradition  wavering  on  the  tongues  of  old  bards, 
or  deep  down  in  the  mosses  show  their  black 
trunks  to  the  light,  when  the  torrents  join  the 
river  in  spate,  and  the  moor  divulges  its 
secrets  as  in  an  earthquake.  Sweetly  sung, 
thou  small,  brown,  moorland  bird,  though  thy 
song  be  but  a  twitter !  And  true  to  thy  time — 
even  to  a  balmy  minute — art  thou,  with  thy 
velvet  tunic  of  black  striped  with  yellow,  as 
thou  windest  thy  small  but  not  sullen  horn — 
by  us  called  in  our  pride  Humble  Bee — but 
not,  methinks,  so  very  humble,  while  booming 
high  in  air  in  oft-repeated  circles,  wondering 
at  our  Tent,  and  at  the  flag  that  now  unfolds 
its  gaudy  length  like  a  burnished  serpent,  as 
if  the  smell  of  some  far-off  darling  heather-bed 
had  touched  thy  finest  instinct,  away  thou 
fliest  straight  southward  to  that  rich  flower- 
store,  unerringly  as  the  carrier-pigeon  wafting 
to  distant  lands  some  love-message  on  its 
wings.  Yet  humble  after  all  thou  art;  for  all 
day  long,  making  thy  industry  thy  delight, 
thou  returnest  at  shut  of  day,  cheerful  even  in 


THE  MOORS. 


115 


thy  weariness,  to  thy  ground-cell  within  the 
knoll,  where  as  Fancy  dreams  the  Fairies  dwell 
— a  Silent  People  in  the  Land  of  Peace. 

And  why  hast  thou,  wild  singing  spirit  of 
the  Highland  Glenorchy,  that  cheerest  the  long- 
withdrawing  vale  from  Inveruren  to  Dalmally, 
and  from  Dalmally  Church-tower  to  the  Old 
Castle  of  Kilchurn,  round  whose  mouldering 
turrets  thou  sweepest  with  more  pensive  mur- 
mur, till  thy  name  and  existence  are  lost  in 
that  noble  loch — why  hast  thou  never  had  thy 
Bard ]  "A  hundred  bards  have  I  had  in 
bygone  ages,"  is  thy  reply;  "but  the  Sassenach 
understands  not  the  traditionary  strains,  and 
the  music  of  the  Gaelic  poetry  is  wasted  on 
his  ear."  Songs  of  war  and  of  love  are  yet 
awakened  by  the  shepherds  among  these  lonely 
braes ;  and  often  when  the  moon  rises  over 
Ben  Cruachan,  and  counts  her  attendant  stars 
in  soft  reflection  beneath  the  still  waters  of  that 
long  inland  sea,  she  hears  the  echoes  of  harps 
chiming  through  the  silence  of  departed  years. 
Tradition  tells,  that  on  no  other  banks  did  the 
fairies  so  love  to  thread  the  mazes  of  their 
mystic  dance,  as  on  the  heathy,  and  brackeny, 
and  oaken  banks  of  the  Orchy,  during  the  long 
summer  nights  when  the  thick-falling  dews 
perceptibly  swelled  the  stream,  and  lent  a  live- 
lier music  to  every  waterfall. 

There  it  was,  on  a  little  river  island,  that 
once,  whether  sleeping  or  waking  we  know 
not,  we  saw  celebrated  a  Fairy's  Funeral. 
First  we  heard  small  pipes  playing,  as  if  no 
bigger  than  hollow  rushes  that  whisper  to  the 
night  winds  ;  and  more  piteous  than  aught  that 
trills  from  earthly  instrument  was  the  scarce 
audible  dirge!  It  seemed  to  float  over  the 
stream,  every  foam-bell  emitting  a  plaintive 
note,  till  the  airy  anthem  came  floating  over 
our  couch,  and  then  alighted  without  footsteps 
among  the  heather.  The  pattering  tif  little 
feet  was  then  heard,  as  if  living  creatures  were 
arranging  themselves  in  order,  and  then  there 
was  nothing  but  a  more  ordered  hymn.  The 
harmony  was  like  the  melting  of  musical  dew- 
drops,  and  sang,  without  words,  of  sorrow  and 
death.  We  opened  our  eyes,  or  rather  sight 
came  to  them  when  closed,  and  dream  was 
vision!  Hundreds  of  creatures,  no  taller  than 
the  crest  of  the  lapwing,  and  all  hanging  down 
their  veiled  heads,  stood  in  a  circle  on  a  green 
plat  among  the  rocks ;  and  in  the  midst  was  a 
bier,  framed  as  it  seemed  of  flowers  unknown 
to  the  Highland  hills ;  and  on  the  bier  a  Fairy, 
lying  with  uncovered  face,  pale  as  the  lily,  and 
motionless  as  the  snow.  The  dirge  grew  fainter 
and  fainter,  and  then  died  quite  away;  when 
two  of  the  creatures  came  from  the  circle,  and 
took  their  station,  one  at  the  head  and  the  other 
at  the  foot  of  the  bier.  They  sang  alternate 
measures,  not  louder  than  the  twittering  of  the 
awakened  wood-lark  before  it  goes  up  the 
dewy  air,  but  dolorous  and  full  of  the  desola- 
tion of  death.  The  flower-bier  stirred;  for  the 
spot  on  which  it  laj'^  sank  slowly  down,  and  in 
a  few  moments  the  greensward  was  smooth  as 
ever — the  very  dews  glittering  above  the  buried 
Fairy.  A  cloud  passed  over  the  moon ;  and, 
with  a  choral  lament,  the  funeral  troop  sailed 
duskily  away,  heard  afar  off,  so  still  was  the 
midnight  solitude  of  the  glen.    Then  the  dis- 


i  enthralled  Orchy  began  to  rejoice  as  before 
through  all  her  streams  and  falls  ;  and  at  the 
sudden  leaping  of  the  waters  and  outbursting 
of  the  moon,  we  awoke. 

Age  is  the  season  of  Imagination,  youth  of 
Passion ;  and  having  been  long  young,  shall 
we  repine  that  we  are  now  old  ]  They  alone 
are  rich  who  are  full  of  years — the  Lords  of 
Time's  Treasury  are  all  on  the  staff  of  Wis- 
dom; their  commissions  are  enclosed  in  fur- 
rows on  their  foreheads,  and  secured  to  them 
for  life.  Fearless  of  fate,  and  far  above  for- 
tune, they  hold  their  heritage  by  the  great 
charter  of  nature  for  behoof  of  all  her  children, 
who  have  not,  like  impatient  heirs,  to  wait  for 
their  decease ;  for  every  hour  dispenses  their 
wealth,  and  their  bounty  is  not  a  late  bequest 
but  a  perpetual  benefaction.  Death  but  sanc- 
tifies their  gifts  to  gratitude ;  and  their  worth 
isanore  clearly  seen  and  profoundly  felt  within 
the  solemn  gloom  of  the  grave. 

And  said  we  truly  that  Age  is  the  season  of 
Imagination  1  That  Youth  is  the  season  of 
Passion  your  own  beating  an '  bounding  hearts 
now  tell  you — your  own  '-oiling  blood.  Inten- 
sity is  its  characteristic  ;  and  it  burns  like  a 
flame  of  fire,  too  often  but  to  consume.  Ex- 
pansion of  the  soul  is  ours,  with  all  its  feel- 
ings and  all  its  "thoughts,  that  wander  through 
eternity ;"  nor  needeth  then  the  spirit  to  have 
wings,  for  power  is  given  her,  beyond  the 
dove's  or  the  eagle's,  and  no  weariness  can 
touch  her  on  that  heavenward  flight. 

Yet  we  are  all  of  "the  earth  earthy,"  and  young 
and  old  alike,  must  we  love  and  honour  our 
home.  Your  eyes  are  bright — ours  are  dim; 
but  "  it  is  the  soul  that  sees,"  and  "  this  diurnal 
sphere"  is  visible  through  the  mist  of  tears. 
In  that  light  how  more  than  beautiful — how 
holy — appears  even  this  world  !  All  sadness, 
save  of  sin,  is  then  most  sacred;  and  sin  itself 
loses  its  terrors  in  repentance,  which  alas  !  is 
seldom  perfect  but  in  the  near  prospect  of  dis- 
solution. For  temptation  may  intercept  her 
within  a  few  feet  of  her  expected  rest,  nay, 
dash  the  dust  from  her  hand  that  she  has  ga- 
thered from  the  burial-place  to  strew  on  her 
head ;  but  Youth  sees  flowery  fields  and  shining 
rivers  far-stretching  before  her  path,  and  can- 
not imagine  for  a  moment  that  among  life's 
golden  mountains  there  is  many  a  Place  of 
Tombs  ! 

But  let  us  speak  only  of  this  earth — this 
world — this  life — and  is  not  Age  the  season  of 
Imagination  1  Imagination  is  Memory  imbued 
by  joy  or  sorrow  with  creative  power  over  the 
past,  till  it  becomes  the  present,  and  then,  on 
that  vision  "  far  off"  the  coming  shines"  of  the 
future,  till  all  the  spiritual  realm  overflows 
with  light.  Therefore  was  it  that,  in  illumined 
Greece,  Memory  was  called  the  Mother  of  the 
Muses ;  and  how  divinely  indeed  they  sang 
around  her  as  she  lay  in  the  pensive  shade ! 

You  know  the  words  of  Milton — 

"Till  old  experience  dotti  attain 
To  something  like  proplietic  strain ;" 
and  you  know,  while  reading  them,  that  Expe- 
rience is  consummate  Memory,  Imagination 
wide  as  the  world,  another  name  for  Wisdom, 
all  one  with  Genius,  and  in  its  "prophetic 
s  train" — Inspiration. 


116 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


We  would  fain  lower  our  tone — and  on  this 
theme  speak  like  what  we  are,  one  of  the 
humblest  children  of  Mother  Earth.  We  can- 
not leap  now  twenty-three  feet  on  level  ground, 
(our  utmost  might  be  twenty-three  inches.) 
nevertheless,  we  could  "put  a  girdle  round 
the  globe  in  forty  minutes," — ay,  in  half  an 
hour,  were  we  not  unwilling  to  dispirit  Ariel. 
What  are  feats  done  in  the  flesh  and  by  the 
muscle?  At  first — worms  though  we  be — we 
cannot  even  crawl; — disdainful  next  of  that 
acquirement,  we  creep,  and  are  distanced  by 
the  earwig; — pretty  lambs,  we  then  totter  to 
the  terror  of  our  deep-bosomed  dames — till  the 
welkin  rings  with  admiration  to  behold,  sans 
leading-strings,  the  weanlings  walk; — like 
wildfire  then  we  run — for  we  have  found  the 
use  of  our  feet ; — like  wild-geese  then  we  fly 
— for  we  may  not  doubt  we  have  wings ; — in 
car,  ship,  balloon,  the  lords  of  earth,  sea,  and 
sky,  and  universal  nature.  The  car  runs  on 
a  post — the  ship  on  a  rock — the  "air  hath 
bubbles  as  the  water  hath" — the  balloon  is  one 
of  them,  and  bursts  like  a  bladder — and  we  be- 
come the  prey  of  sharks,  surgeons,  or  sextons. 
Where,  pray,  in  all  this  is  there  a  single  symp- 
tom or  particle  of  Imagination  ?  It  is  of  Pas- 
sion "  all  compact." 

True,  this  is  not  a  finished  picture — 'tis  but 
a  slight  sketch  of  the  season  of  Youth ;  but 
paint  it  as  you  will,  as  if  faithful  to  nature  you 
will  find  Passion  in  plenty,  and  a  dearth  of 
Imagination.  Nor  is  the  season  of  Youth 
therefore  to  be  pitied— for  Passion  respires 
and  expires  in  bliss  ineffable,  and  so  far  from 
being  eloquent  as  the  unwise  lecture,  it  is 
mute  as  a  fish,  and  merely  gasps.  In  Youth 
we  are  the  creatures— the  slaves  of  the  senses. 
But  the  bondage  is  borne  exultingly  in  spite  of 
its  severity;  for  erelong  we  come'  to  discern 
through  the  dust  of  our  own  raising,  the  pin- 
nacles of  towers  and  temples  serenely  ascend- 
ing into  the  skies,  high  and  holy  places  for 
rule,  for  reat,  or  for  religion,  where  as  kings 
we  may  reign,  as  priests  minister,  as  saints 
adore. 

We  do  not  deny,  excellent  youth,  that  to 
your  eyes  and  ears  beautiful  and  sublime  are 
the  sights  and  sounds  of  Nature — and  of  Art 
her  Angel.  Enjoy  thy  pupilage,  as  we  enjoyed 
ours,  and  deliver  thyself  up  withouten  dread, 
or  with  a  holy  dread,  to  the  gloom  of  woods, 
where  night  for  ever  dwells — to  the  glory  of 
skies,  where  morn  seems  enthroned  for  ever. 
Coming  and  going  a  thousand  and  a  thousand 
times,  yet,  in  its  familiar  beautv,  ever  new  as 
a  dream — let  thy  soul  span  the  heavens  with 
the  rainbow.  Ask  thy  heart  in  the  wilderness 
if  that  "  thunder,  heard  remote,"  be  from  cloud 
or  cataract;  and  ere  it  can  reply,  it  may  shud- 
der at  the  shuddering  moor,  and  your  flesh 
creep  upon  your  bones,  as  the  heather  seems 
to  creep  on  the  bent,  with  the  awe  of  a  pass- 
ing earthquake.  Let  ihe  sea-mew  be  the  guide 
up  the  glen,  if  thy  delight  be  in  peace  pro- 
founder  than  ever  sat  with  her  on  the  lull  of 
vummer  waves !  For  the  inland  loch  seems 
hut  a  vale  overflowing  with  wondrous  light — 
and  realities  they  all  look — these  trees"  and 
pastures,  and  rocks  and  hills,  and  clouds — not 
•oftencd  images,  as  they  are,  of  realities  that 


are  almost  stern  even  in  their  beauty,  and  in 
their  sublimity  overawing;  look  at  yon  preci- 
pice that  dwindles  into  pebbles  the  granite 
blocks  that  choke  up  the  shore ! 

Now  all  this,  and  a  million  times  more  than 
all  this,  have  we  too  done  in  our  Youth,  and 
yet  'tis  all  nothing  to  what  we  do  whenever 
we  will  it  in  our  Age.  For  almost  all  that 
is  passion;  spiritual  passion  indeed — and  as 
all  emotions  are  akin,  they  all  work  with, 
and  into  one  another's  hands,  and,  however 
rcmotel}''  related,  recognise  and  welcome  one 
another,  like  Highland  cousins,  Avhenever  they 
meet.  Imagination  is  not  the  Facult}-  to  stand 
aloof  iVom  the  rest,  but  gives  the  one  hand  to 
Fancy  and  the  other  to  Feeling,  and  ^els  to 
Passion,  who  is  often  so  swallowed  up  in  him- 
self as  to  seem  blind  to  their  I'ls-a-vis,  till  all  at 
once  he  hugs  all  the  Three,  as  if  he  were  de- 
mented, and  as  suddenly  sporting  dos-n-dos — is 
ofl!'on  a  gallopade  by  himself  right  slick  away 
over  the  mountain-tops. 

To  the  senses  of  a  schoolboy  a  green  soui 
crab  is  as  a  golden  pippin,  more  delicious  than 
any  pine-apple — the  tree  which  he  climbs  to 
pluck  it  seems  to  grow  in  the  garden  of  Edeu 
— and  the  parish — moorland  though  it  be — 
over  which  he  is  let  loose  to  play — Paradise. 
It  is  barely  possible  there  may  be  such  a  sub- 
stance as  matter,  but  all  its  qualities  worth 
having  are  given  it  by  mind.  By  a  necessity 
of  nature,  then,  we  are  all  poets.  We  all  make 
the  food  we  feed  on  ;  nor  is  jealousy,  the  green- 
eyed  monster,  the  only  wretch  who  discolours 
and  deforms.  Every  evil  thought  does  do — 
every  good  thought  gives  fresh  lustre  to  the 
grass — to  the  flowers — to  the  stars.  And  sis 
the  faculties  of  sense,  after  becoming  finer  and 
more  fine,  do  then,  because  that  they  are  earth- 
ly, gradually  lose  their  power,  the  faculties  of 
the  souf,  because  that  they  are  heavenly,  be- 
come then  more  and  more  a«id  more  indepen- 
dent of  such  ministrations,  and  continue  to 
deal  with  images,  and  with  ideas  which  are 
diviner  than  images,  nor  care  for  either  partial 
or  total  eclipse  of  the  daylight,  conversant  as 
ihey  are,  and  familiar  with  a  more  resplendent 
— a  spiritual  universe. 

You  siill  look  incredulous  and  unconWnced 
of  the  truth  of  our  position — but  it  was  es- 
tablished in  our  first  three  paragraphs ;  and 
the  rest,  though  proofs  too,  are  intended  merely 
for  illustrations.  Age  alone  understands  the 
language  of  old  Mother  Earth — for  Age  alone, 
from  his  own  experience,  can  imagine  its 
meanings  in  trouble  or  in  rest — often  m)'steri- 
ous  enough  even  to  him  in  all  conscience — 
but  intelligible  though  inarticulate — nor  al- 
ways inarticulate;  for  though  sobs  and  sighs 
are  rife,  and  whispers  and  murmurs,  and 
groans  and  gurgling,  yea,  sometimes  yells  and 
cries,  as  if  the  old  Earth  were  undergoing  a 
violent  death — yet  many  a  time  and  oft,  within 
these  few  years,  have  we  heard  her  slowly 
syllabling  words  out  of  the  Bible,  and  as  in 
listening  we  looked  up  to  the  sky,  the  fixed 
stars  responded  to  their  truth,  and,  like  Mercy 
visiting  Despair,  the  Moon  bor"  it  into  the 
heart  of  the  stormj'  clouds. 

And  are  there  not  now — have  there  never 
been  young  Poets  1     Many ;  for  Passion,  so 


THE  MOORS. 


117 


tossed  as  to  leave,  perhaps  to  give,  the  sufferer 
power  to  reflect  on  his  ecstasy,  grows  poetical 
because  creative,  and  loves  to  express  itself 
in  "prose  or  numerous  verse,"  at  once  its 
nutriment  and  relief.  Nay,  Nature  sometimes 
gifts  her  children  with  an  imaginative  spirit, 
that,  from  slight  experiences  of  passion,  re- 
joices to  idealize  intentions,  and  incidents,  and 
characters  all  coloured  by  it,  or  subject  to  its 
sway  ;  and  these  are  Poets,  not  with  old  heads 
on  young  shoulders,  but  with  old  hearts  in 
young  bosoms;  yet  such  premature  genius 
seldom  escapes  blight,  the  very  springs  of  life 
are  troubled,  and  its  possessor  sinks,  pines, 
fades,  and  dies.  So  was  it  with  Chatterton 
and  Keates. 

It  may  be,  after  all,  that  we  have  only  proved 
Age  to  be  the  strongest  season  of  Imagination; 
and  if  so,  we  have  proved  all  we  wish,  for  we 
seek  not  to  deny,  but  to  vindicate.  Know- 
ledge is  power  to  the  poet  as  it  is  power  to  all 
men — and  indeed  without  Art  and  Science 
what  is  Poetry?  Without  cultivation  the  fa- 
culty divine  can  have  but  imperfect  vision. 
The  inner  eye  is  dependent  on  the  outward  eye 
long  familiar  with  material  objects — a  finer 
sense,  cognisant  of  spiritualities,  but  acquired 
by  the  soul  from  constant  communion  with 
shadows — innate  the  capacity,  but  awakened 
into  power  by  gracious  intercourse  with  Na- 
ture. Thus  Milton  saw — after  he  became 
blind. 

But  know  that  Age  is  not  made  up  of  a  multi- 
tude of  years — though  that  be  the  vulgar  reckon- 
ing— but  of  a  multitude  of  experiences;  and 
that  a  man  at  thirty,  if  good  for  much,  must  be 
old.  How  long  he  may  continue  in  the  prime 
of  Age,  God  decrees ;  many  men  of  the  most 
magnificent  minds — for  example,  Michael  An- 
gelo — have  been  all-glorious  in  power  and 
majesty  at  fourscore  and  upwards;  but  one 
drop  of  water  on  the  brain  can  at  any  hour 
make  it  barren  as  dust.     So  can  great  griefs. 

Yestreen  we  had  rather  a  hard  bout  of  it  in 
the  Tent — the  Glenlivet  was  pithy — and  our 
Tail  sustained  a  total  overthrow.  They  are 
snoring  as  if  it  still  were  midnight.  And  is  it 
thus  that  we  sportsmen  spend  our  time  on  the 
Moors  1  Yet  while  "so  many  of  our  poorest 
subjects  are  yet  asleep,"  let  us  repoint  the  nib 
of  our  pen,  and  in  the  eye  of  the  sweel-breath'd 
morning — moralize. 

Wellnigh  quarter  a  centurj',  we  said,  is  over 
and  gone  since  by  the  Linn  of  Dee  we  pitched 
—on  that  famous  excursion — the  Text.  Then 
was  the  genesis  of  that  white  witch  Maga. 

"Lilie  some  tall  Palm  her  noiseless  fabric  grew  :" 
Nay,  not  noiseless — for  the  deafest  wight  that 
ever  strove  to  hear  with  his  mouth  wide  open, 
might  have  sworn  that  he  heard  the  sound  of 
ten   thousand  hammers.      Neither   grew  she  j 
like  a  Palm — but  like  a  Banyan-tree.     Ever  as  j 
she  threw  forth  branches  from  her  great  unex- ! 
hausted  stem ,  they  were  borne  down  by  the 
weight  of  their  own    beauty  to  the  soil — the 
deep,  black  rich  soil  in  which  she  grew,  origi- 
nally sown  there  by  a  bird  of  Paradise,  that 
dropt  the    seed  from  her  beak  as  she  sailed 
along  in  the  sunshiny  ether — and  every  lira- 
berest  spray  there   again    taking   root,   reas- 
cended  a  stately  scion,  and  so  on  ceaselessly 


through  all  the  hours,  each  in  itself  a  spring- 
season,  till  the  figurative  words  of  Milton  have 
been  fulfilled — 

"  Her  arms 

Branching  so  liroad  and  long,  that  in  the  ground 
The  bended  twigs  take  root,  and  daughters  grow 
About  the  mother  tree,  a  pillar'd  shade 
High  overarch'd,  and  echoing  walks  between  ; 
There  oft  the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  shunning  heat. 
Shelters  in  cool,  and  tends  his  pasturing  herds 
At  loopholes  cut  through  thickest  shade." 

But  alas!  for  the  Odontist!  He,  the  "Deli- 
da  generis  Humani,"  is  dead.  The  best  of  all 
the  Bishops  of  Bristol  is  no  more.  Mansel 
had  not  a  tithe  of  his  wit — nor  Kaye  a  tithe  of 
his  wisdom.  And  can  it  be  that  we  have  not 
yet  edited  "  His  Remains  !"  "  Alas  !  poor  Yo- 
rick  !"  If  Hamlet  could  smile  even  with  the 
skull  of  the  Jester  in  his  hands,  whom  when  a 
princely  boy  he  had  loved,  hanging  on  his  neck 
many  a  thousand  times,  why  may  not  we,  in 
our  mind's  eye  seeing  that  mirthful  face  "  quite 
chap-fallen,"  and  hearing  as  if  dismally  dead- 
ened by  the  dust,  the  voice  that  "  so  often  set 
our  table  on  a  roar !"  Dr.  Parr's  wig,  too,  is 
all  out  of  frizzle ;  a  heavier  shot  has  dishevel- 
led its  horsehair  than  ever  was  sent  from  the 
Shepherd's  gun  ;  no  more  shall  it  be  mistaken 
for  owl  a-blink  on  the  mid-day  bough,  or 
ptarmigan  basking  in  the  sun  high  up  among 
the  regions  of  the  snow.  It  has  vanished,  with 
other  lost  things,  to  the  Moon  ;  and  its  image 
alone  remains  for  the  next  edition  of  the  cele- 
brated treatise  "  Dc  Rebus  Deperditis,"  a  suitable 
and  a  welcome  frontispiece,  transferred  thither 
by  the  engraver's  cunning  from  the  first  of 
those  Eight  Tomes  that  might  make  the  Throne 
tremble,  laid  on  the  shoulders  of  Atlas  who 
threatens  to  put  down  the  Globe,  by  the  least 
judicious  and  the  most  unmerciful  of  editors 
that  ever  imposed  upon  the  light  living  the 
heavy  dead — John  Johnson,  late  of  Birming- 
ham, Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  and  of  the 
Royal  College  of  Physicians,  whose  practice  is 
duller  than  that  of  all  Death's  doctors,  and  his 
prescriptions  in  that  preface  unchristianly  se- 
vere. O'Doherty,  likewise,  has  been  gathered 
to  his  fathers.  The  Standard-bearer  has  low- 
ered his  colours  before  the  foe  who  alone  is 
invincible.  The  Ensign,  let  us  not  fear,  has 
been  advanced  to  a  company  without  purchase, 
in  the  Celestials;  the  Adjutant  has  got  a  Staff 
appointment.  Tims  was  lately  rumoured  to 
be  in  a  galloping  consumption  ;  but  the  very 
terms  of  the  report,  about  one  so  sedentary, 
were  sufficient  to  give  it  the  lie.  Though  puny, 
he  is  far  from  being  unwell ;  and  still  engaged 
in  polishing  tea-spoons  and  other  plated  arti- 
cles, at  a  rate  cheaper  than  travelling  gipsie's 
do  horn.     Prince  Leopold  is  now  King  of  the 

Belgians but  we  must  put  an  end  in  the 

Tent  to  that  portentous  snore. 

"  Arise,  awake,  or  be  for  ever  fallen  !" 

Ho — ho  !  gentlemen — so  you  have  had  the 
precaution  to  sleep  in  your  clothes.  The  sun, 
like  Maga,  is  mounting  higher  and  higher  in 
heaven ;  so  let  us,  we  beseech  you,  to  break- 
fast, and  then  off  to  the  Moors. 

"Substantial   breakfast!"   by  Dugald  Dhu, 
and  by  Donald  Roy,  and  by  Hamish  Bhan- 
heaped  up  like  icebergs  round  the  pole.     How 
nobly  stands  in  the  centre  that  ten-gallon  Cask 


118 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH 


of  Glenlivet !  Proud  is  that  round  to  court  his 
shade.  That  tM'enty-pound  Salmon  lies  be- 
neath it  even  as  yesterday  he  lay  beneath  the 
cliff,  while  a  column  of  light  falls  from  him  on 
that  Grouse-Pie.  Is  not  that  Ham  beautiful  in 
the  calm  consciousness  of  his  protection  1 
That  Tongue  mutely  eloquent  in  his  praise  ? 
Tap  him  with  your  knuckles,  tenderly  as  if 
you  loved  him — and  that  with  all  your  heart 
and  soul  you  do — and  is  not  the  response  firm 
as  from  the  trunk  of  the  gnarled  oak?  He  is 
yet  "  Virgin  of  Proserpina" — "  by  Jove"  he  is  ; 
no  wanton  lip  has  ever  touched  his  mouth  so 
chaste ;  so  knock  out  the  bung,  and  let  us  hear 
him  gurgle.  With  diviner  music  does  he  fill 
the  pitcher,  and  with  a  diviner  liquidity  of  light 
than  did  ever  Naiad  from  fount  of  Helicon  or 
Castaly,  pour  into  classic  urn  gracefully  up- 
lifted by  Grecian  damsel  to  her  graceful  head, 
and  borne  away,  with  a  thanksgiving  hymn, 
to  her  bower  in  the  olive-grove. 

All  eggs  are  good  eating;  and  'tis  a  vulgar 
heresy  which  hold  that  those  laid  by  sea-fowl 
have  a  fishy  taste.  The  egs:  of  the  Sea-mew 
is  exceeding  sweet ;  so  is  that  of  the  Gull. 
Pleasant  is  even  the  yolk  of  the  Cormorant — 
in  the  north  of  England  ycleped  the  Scarth, 
and  in  the  Lowlands  of  Scotland  the  Black  By- 
uler.  Try  a  Black  Byuter's  egg,  my  dear  boy  ; 
for  though  not  newly  laid,  it  has  since  May 
been  preserved  in  butter,  and  is  as  fresh  as  a 
daisy  after  a  shower.  Do  not  be  afraid  of 
stumbling  on  a  brace  of  embryo  Black  Byu- 
ters  in  the  interior  of  the  globe,  for  by  its 
•weight  we  pronounce  it  an  egg  in  no  peril  of 
parturition.  You  may  now  smack  your  lips, 
loud  as  if  you  were  smacking  your  palms,  for 
that  yellow  morsel  was  unknown  to  Vitellius. 
Don't  crush  the  shell,  but  throw  it  into  the 
Etive,  that  the  Fairies  may  find  it  at  night,  and 
go  dancing  in  the  fragile  but  buoyant  canoe, 
in  fits  of  small  shrill  laughter,  along  with  the 
foam-bells  over  the  ebbtide  Rapids  above  Con- 
nal's  raging  Ferry. 

The  salmon  is  in  shivers,  and  the  grouse-pie 
has  vanished  like  a  dream. 

"  So  fades,  so  laneuislies,  grows  dim,  and  dies. 
All  that  this  world  is  pruud  of  1" 

Only  a  goose  remains!  and  would  that  he  too 
were  gone  to  return  no  more  ;  for  he  makes  us 
an  old  man.  No  tradition  survives  in  the 
Glen  of  the  era  at  which  he  first  flourished.  He 
seems  to  have  belonged  to  some  tribe  of  the 
Anseres  now  extinct ;  and  as  for  his  own  single 
individual  self,  our  senses  tell  us,  in  a  language 
not  to  be  misinterpreted,  that  he  must  have  be- 
come defunct  in  the  darkness  of  antiquit}-.  But 
nothing  can  be  too  old  for  a  devil — so  at  sup- 
per let  us  rectify  him  in  Cayenne. 

Oh  !  for  David  Wilkie,  or  William  Simpson, 
(while  we  send  Gibb  to  bring  away  yonder 
Shieling  and  its  clift',)  to  paint  a  picture — co- 
loured, if  possible,  from  the  life — of  the  Interior 
of  our  airy  Pyramid.  Door  open,  and  perpen- 
dicular canvas  walls  folded  up — that  settled 
but  cloudy  sky,  with  here  its  broad  blue  fields, 
and  there  its  broad  blue  glimpsing  glades — this 
greensward  mound  in  the  midst  of  a  wilder- 
ness of  rock-strewn  hcther — as  much  of  that 
one  mountain,  and  as  many  of  those  others,  as 


it  can  be  made  to  hold — that  bright  bend  of 
the  river — a  silver  bow — and  that  white-sand- 
ed, shelly,  shingly  shore  at  Loch-Etive  Head, 
on  which  a  troop  of  Tritons  are  "  charging 
with  all  their  chivalry,"  still  driven  back  and 
still  returning,  to  the  sound  of  trumpets,  of 
"flutes  and  soft  recorders,"  from  the  sea.  On 
the  table,  all  strewn  and  scattered  "in  confu- 
sion worse  confounded,"  round  the  Cask,  which 

"  dilated  stands 

Like  Tencrifle  or  Atlas  unremoved," 

what  ^'  buttery  touches"  might  be  given  to  the 
"reliquias  Danaum  atque  iniuitis  Achlllei!" 

Then  the  camp-beds  tidily  covered  and  arrang- 
ed along  their  own  department  of  the  circle — 
quaint  dresses  hanging  from  loops,  all  the  va- 
rious apparelling  of  hunter,  shooter,  fisher,  and 
forester — rods,  baskets,  and  nets  occupying 
their  picturesque  division — fowling-pieces, 
double  and  single,  rejoicing  through  the  oil- 
smooth  brownness  of  their  barrels  in  the  ex- 
quisite workmanship  of  a  Manton  and  a  Lan- 
caster— American  rifles,  with  their  stocks  more 
richly  silver-chased  than  you  could  have 
thought  within  reach  of  the  arts  in  that  young 
and  prosperous  land — duck-guns,  whose  for- 
midable and  fatal  length  had  in  Lincolnshire 
often  swept  the  fens — and  on  each  side  of  the 
door,  a  brass  carronade  on  idle  hours  to  awa- 
ken the  echoes — sitting  erect  on  their  hurdles, 
deerhound,  greyhound,  lucher,  pointer,  setter, 
spaniel,  varmint,  and  though  last,  not  least, 
O'Bronle  watching  Christopher  with  his  stead- 
fast eyes,  slightly  raised  his  large  hanging 
triangular  ears,  his  Thcssalian  bull  dewlaps 
betokening  keen  anxiety  to  be  off  and  away  to 
the  mountain,  and  with  a  full  view  of  the  while 
star  on  his  coal-black  breast, — 

"  Plaided  and  pluini'd  in  their  Tartan  array," 

our  three  chosen  Highlanders,  chosen  for  their 
strength  and  their  flcctness  from  among  the 
prime  Children  of  the  Mist — and  Tickler  the 
Tall,  who  keeps  growing  after  threescore  and 
ten  like  a  striplin?.  and  leaves  his  mark  within 
a  few  inches  of  the  top  of  the  pole,  arrayed  in 
tights  of  Kendal  green,  bright  from  the  skylight 
of  the  inimitable  Vallance  or  the  matchless 
Williams — green  too  his  vest,  and  green  alSo 
his  tunic — while  a  green  feather  in  a  green 
bonnet  dances  in  its  airy  splendour,  and  gold 
button-holes  give  at  once  lustre  and  relief  to 
the  glowing  verdure,  (such  was  Little  John, 
when  arrayed  in  all  his  slor},  to  walk  behind 
Robin  Hood  and  Maid  Marian,  as  the)'  glided 
from  tree  to  tree,  in  wait  for  the  fallow-deer  in 
merry  Sherwood.) — North  in  his  Quaker  garb 
— Quaker-like  all  but  in  cufls  and  flaps,  which, 
when  he  goes  to  the  Forest,  are  not — North, 
with  a  figure  combining  in  itself  all  the  strength 
of  a  William  Penn,  sans  its  corpulency,  all  the 
agility  of  a  lem  Belcher  with  far  more  than  a 
Jem  Belcher's  bottom — with  a  face  exhibiting 
in  rarest  union  all  the  philosophy  of  a  Bacon, 
the  benevolence  of  a  Howard,  the  wisdom  of  a 
Wordsworth,  the  fire  of  a  Byron,  the  gnosticity 
of  a  John  Bee,  and  the  up-to-trappishness  com- 
bined not  onlv  with  perfect  honesty,  but  with 
honour  bright,  of  the  Sporting  Editor  of  Bell's 
Life  in  London — and  then,  why  if  Wilkie  or 


THE  MOORS. 


119 


Simpson  fail  in  making  a  gex  of  all  that,  they 
are  not  the  men  of  genius  we  took  them  for, 
that  is  all,  and  the  art  must  be  at  a  low  ebb  in- 
deed in  these  kingdoms. 

Well,  our  Tail  has  taken  wings  to  itself  and 
flown  away  with  Dugald  Dhu  and  Donald  Roy ; 
and  we,  with  Hamish  Bhan,  with  Ponto,  Piro, 
Basta,  and  O'Bronte,  are  left  by  ourselves  in 
the  Tent.  Before  we  proceed  farther,  it  may 
not  be  much  amiss  to  turn  up  our  little  fingers 
— yestreen  we  were  all  a  leetle  opstropelous — 
and  spermaceti  is  not  a  more  "  sovereign  re- 
medy for  an  inward  bruise,"  than  is  a  hair  from 
the  dog's  tail  that  bit  you  an  antidote  to  any 
pus  that  produces  rabies  in  the  shape  of  hy- 
drophobia. Fill  up  the  quech,  Ilamish  !  a 
caulker  of  Milbank  can  harm  no  man  at  any 
hour  of  the  day — at  least  in  the  Highlands. 
8ma'  Stell,  Hamish — assuredly  Sma'  Stell ! 

Ere  we  start,  Hamish,  play  us  a  Gathering — 
and  then  a  Pibroch.  "The  Campbells  are 
coming"  is  like  a  storm  from  the  mountain 
sweeping  Glen-More,  that  roars  beneath  the 
hastening  hurricane  with  all  its  woods.  No 
earthquake  like  that  which  accompanies  the 
trampling  of  ten  thousand  men.  So,  round 
that  shoulder,  Hamish — and  away  for  a  mile 
up  the  Glen — then,  turning  on  your  heel,  blow 
till  proud  might  be  the  mother  that  bore  you; 
and  from  the  Tent-mouth  Christopher  will 
keep  smart  fire  from  his  Pattereroes,  answered 
by  all  the  echoes.  Hamish — indeed 
"Thfi  dun. deer's  hide 
On  swifter  foot  was  never  tied — " 

for  even  now  as  that  cloud — rather  thunderous 
in  his  aspect — settles  himself  over  the  Tent — 
ere  five  minutes  have  elapsed — a  mile  off  is 
the  sullen  sound  of  the  bagpipe!  —  music 
which,  if  it  rouse  you  not  when  heard  among 
the  mountains,  may  you  henceforth  confine 
yourself  to  the  Jew's  harp.  Ay,  here's  a  clay- 
more— let  us  fling  away  the  scabbard — and  in 
upon  the  front  rank  of  the  bayoneted  muskets, 
till  the  Saxon  array  reels,  or  falls  just  where 
it  has  been  standing,  like  a  swathe  of  grass. 
So  swept  of  old  the  Highlanders — shepherds 
and  herdsmen — down  the  wooded  clifts  of  the 
pass  of  Killiekrankie,  till  Mackay's  red-coats 
lay  redder  in  blood  among  the  heather,  or 
passed  away  like  the  lurid  fragments  of  a 
cloud.  "  The  Campbell's  are  coming" — and  we 
will  charge  with  the  heroes  in  the  van.  The 
whole  clan  is  maddening  along  the  Moor — and 
Maccallum  More  himself  is  at  their  head.  But 
we  beseech  you,  O'Bronte  !  not  to  look  so  like 
a  lion — and  to  hush  in  your  throat  and  breast 
that  truly  leonine  growl — for  after  all, 'tis  but 
a  bagpipe  with  ribands 

"  Streaming  like  meteors  to  the  troubled  air," 
and  all  our  martial  enthusiasm  has  evaporated 
in — wind. 

But  let  us  inspect  Brown  Bess.  Till  sixty, 
we  used  a  single  barrel.  At  seventy  we  took 
to  a  double  ; — but  dang  detonators — we  stick 
to  the  flint.  "Flint,"  says  Colonel  Hawker, 
"shoots  strongest  into  the  bird."  A  percus- 
sion-gun is  quicker,  but  flint  is  fast  enough; 
and  it  does,  indeed,  argue  rather  a  confusion 
than  a  rapidity  of  ideas,  to  find  fault  with 
lightning  for  being  too  slow.  With  respect  to 
the  flash  in  the  pan,  it  is  but  a  fair  warning  to 


ducks,  for  example,  to  dive  if  they  can,  and  get 
out  of  the  way  of  mischief.  It  is  giving  birds 
a  chance  for  their  lives,  and  is  it  not  ungene- 
rous to  grudge  if?  When  our  gun  goes  to  our 
shoulder,  that  chance  is  but  small;  for  with 
double-barrel  Brown  Bess,  it  is  but  a  word  and 
a  blow, — the  blow  first,  and  long  before  you 
could  say  Jack  Robinson,  the  gorcock  plays 
thud  on  the  heather.  But  we  beg  leave  to  set 
the  question  at  rest  for  ever  by  one  single 
clencher.  We  have  killed  fifty  birds — grouse 
— at  fifty  successive  shots — one  bird  only  to  the 
shot.  And  mind,  not  mere  pouts — cheepers — 
for  we  are  no  chicken-butchers — but  all  thump- 
ers— cocks  and  hens  as  big  as  their  parents,  and 
the  parents  themselves  likewise ;  not  one  of 
which  fell  out  of  bounds,  (to  borrow  a  phrase 
from  the  somewhat  silly  though  skilful  pastime 
of  pigeon-shooting,)  except  one  that  suddenly 
soared  halfway  up  to  the  moon,  and  then 

"Into  such  strange  vagaries  fell 
As  he  would  dance," 

and  tumbled  down  stone-dead  into  a  loch. 
Now,  what  more  could  have  done  a  detonator 
in  the  hands  of  the  devil  himself!  Satan 
might  have  shot  as  well,  perhaps,  as  Christo- 
pher North — better  we  defy  him;  and  we  can- 
not doubt  that  his  detonator — given  to  him  in 
a  present,  we  believe,  by  Joe  Manton — is  a 
prime  article — one  of  the  best  ever  manufac- 
tured on  the  percussion  system.  But  what 
more  could  he  have  done  ?  When  we  had 
killed  our  fiftieth  bird  in  style,  we  put  it  to  the 
Christian  reader,  would  not  the  odds  have  been 
six  to  four  on  the  flint  1  And  would  not  Satan, 
at  the  close  of  the  match,  ten  birds  behind  per- 
haps, and  with  a  bag  shamefully  rich  in  poor 
pouts,  that  would  have  fallen  to  the  ground 
had  he  but  thrown  salt  on  their  tails,  have 
looked  excessively  sheepish?  True,  that  in 
rain  or  snow  the  percussion-lock  will  act,  from 
its  detonating  power,  more  correctly  than  the 
common  flint-lock,  which,  begging  its  pardon, 
will  then  often  not  act  at  all ;  but  that  is  its 
only  advantage,  and  we  confess  a  great  one, 
especially  in  Scotland,  where  it  is  a  libel  on 
the  country  to  say  that  it  always  rains,  for  it 
almost  as  often  snows.  However,  spite  of 
wind  and  weather,  we  are  faithful  to  flint;  nor 
shall  any  newfangled  invention,  howsoever 
ingenious,  wean  us  from  our  First  Love. 

Let  not  youthful  or  middle-aged  sportsmen 
— in  whose  veins  the  blood  yet  gallops,  canters, 
or  trots — despise  us,  Monsieur  Vieillard,  in 
whose  veins  the  blood  creeps  like  a  wearied 
pedestrian  at  twilight  hardly  able  to  hobble 
into  the  wayside  inn — for  thus  so  long  prefer- 
ring the  steel-pen  to  the  steel  barrel  (the  style 
of  both  is  equally  polished) — our  Bramah  to 
our  Manton.  Those  two  wild  young  fellows, 
Tickler  and  the  Admiral,  whose  united  ages 
amount  to  little  more  than  a  century  and  a  half, 
are  already  slaughtering  their  way  along  the 
mountain  side,  the  one  on  Bauchaille  Etive, 
and  the  other  on  the  Black  Mount.  But  we 
love  not  to  commit  murder  long  before  men 
dian — "gentle  lover  of  Nature"  as  we  are;  so, 
in  spite  of  the  scorn  of  the  more  passionate 
sportsman,  we  shall  continue  for  an  hour  or 
two  longer  inditing,  ever  and  anon  lifting  our 
eyes  from  whitey-brown  paper  to  whitey-blue 


12C 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


sky,  from  memorandum-book  to  mountain, 
fi'om  inkbotlle  to  loch,  and  delight  ourselves, 
and  perchance  a  few  thousand  others,  by  a 
waking-dream  description  of  Glen-Etive. 

'Tis  a  vast  Glen.  Not  one  single  human 
dwelling  any  where  spec-like  on  the  river-wind- 
ing plain — or  nest-like  among  the  brushwood 
knolls — or  rock-like  among  the  fractured  cliffs 
far  up  on  the  mountain  region  do  our  eyes  be- 
hold, eager  as  they  are  to  discover  some  symp- 
toms of  life.  Two  houses  we  know  to  be  in 
the  solitude — ay,  two — one  of  them  near  the 
head  of  the  Loch,  and  the  otiier  near  the  head 
of  the  Glen — but  both  distant  from  this  our 
Tent,  which  is  pitched  between,  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  Moor.  We  were  mistaken  in  say- 
ing that  Dalness  is  invisible — for  yonder  it 
looms  in  sullen  light,  and  before  we  have'  fin- 
ished the  sentence,  may  have  again  sunk  into 
the  moor.  Ay,  it  is  gone — for  lights  and  sha- 
dows coming  and  going,  we  know  not  whence 
nor  wiiither,  here  travel  all  day  long — the 
sole  tenants — very  ghost-liUe — and  seeming- 
ly in  their  shiftings  embued  with  a  sort  of  dim 
uncertain  life.  How  far  oti"  from  our  Tent 
may  be  the  Loch  1  Miles — and  silently  as 
snow  are  seen  to  break  the  waves  along  the 
shore,  while  beyond  them  hangs,  in  aerial  haze, 
the  great  blue  water.  How  far  off  from  our 
Tent  may  be  the  mountains  at  the  head  of  the 
Glen  ]  Miles — for  though  that  speck  in  the 
sky  into  which  they  upheave  their  mighty  alti- 
tudes, be  doubtless  an  eagle,  we  cannot  hear 
its  cry.  What  giants  are  these  right  opposite 
our  Pyramid]  Co — grim  chieftain — and  his 
'J'ail.  What  an  assemblage  of  thunder-riven 
clifis  !  This  is  what  may  be  well  called — Na- 
ture on  a  grand  scale.  And  then,  how  simple  ! 
We  begin  to  feel  ourselves — in  spile  of  all  we 
can  do  to  support  our  dignity  by  our  pride — a 
mighty  small  and  insignificant  personage.  We 
are  about  six  feet  high — and  every  body 
around  us  about  four  thousand.  Yes,  that  is 
the  Four  Thousand  Feet  Club!  M'o  had  no 
idea  that  in  any  situation  we  could  be  such 
dwindled  dwarfs,  such  perfect  pigmies.  Our 
Tent  is  about  as  big  as  a  fir-cone — and  Chris- 
topher North  an  insect ! 

What  a  wild  world  of  clouds  all  over  that 
vast  central  wilderness  of  Northern  Argyie- 
shire  lying  between  Cruachan  and  Melnatorran 
— Corryfinuarach  and  Ben  Slarive  a  prodigious 
land!  defying  description,  and  in  memory  re- 
sembling not  realities,  but  like  fragments  of 
tremendous  dreams.  Is  it  a  sterile  region  '^ 
Very.  In  places  nothing  but  stones.  Not  a 
blade  of  grass — not  a  bent  of  heather — not 
even  moss.  And  so  they  go  shouldering  up 
into  the  sky — enormous  masses — huger  than 
churches  or  ships.  And  sometimes  not  unlike 
such  and  other  structures — all  huddled  together 
— yet  never  jostling,  so  far  as  we  have  seen ;  and 
though  often  overhanging,  as  if  the  wind  might 
blow  them  over  with  a  pulf,  steadfast  in  the 
storm  that  seems  rather  to  be  an  earthquake, 
and  moving  not  a  hair's-breadih,  while  all  the 
shingly  sides  of  the  mountains — you  know 
shingle — with  an  inconstant  clatter — hurry- 
skiirry — seem  to  be  breaking  up  into  debris. 

Is  that  the  character  of  the  whole  region  1 
No,  you  darling;  it  has  vales  on  vales  of  emc 


raid,  and  mountains  on  mountains  of  amethyst, 
and  streams  on  streams  of  silver;  and,  so 
help  us  Heaven  ! — for  with  these  eyes  we  have 
seen  them,  a  thousand  and  a  thousand  times — 
at  sunrise  and  sunset,  rivers  on  rivers  of  gold. 
What  kind  of  climate  1  All  kinds,  and  all 
kinds  at  once — not  merely  during  the  same 
season,  but  the  same  hour.  Suppose  it  three 
o'clock  of  a  summer  afternoon — you  have  but 
to  choose  your  weather.  Do  you  desire  a  close, 
sultry,  breathless  gloom  1  You  have  it  in  the 
stilling  dens  of  Ben-AnC-a,  where  lions  might 
breed.  A  breezy  coolness,  with  a  sprinkling 
of  rain  !  Then  open  your  vest  to  the  greea 
light  in  the  dewy  vales  of  Benlura.  Lochs 
look  lovely  in  mist,  and  so  thinks  the  rainbow 
— then  away  with  you  ere  the  rainbow  fade — 
away,  we  beseech  you,  to  the  wild  shores  of 
Lochan-a-Lurich.  But  you  would  rather  see  a 
storm,  and  hear  some  Highland  thunder? 
There  is  one  at  this  moment  on  Unimore,  and 
Cruachlia  growls  to  .Meallanuir,  till  the  cata- 
racts of  Glashgour  are  dumb  as  the  dry  rocks 
of  Craig-TeOnan. 

In  those  regions  we  were,  when  a  boy,  initi- 
ated into  the  highest  mysteries  of  the  Highlands. 
No  guide  dogged  our  steps — as  well  might  a 
red-deer  have  asked  a  cur  to  show  him  the 
Forest  of  Braemar,  or  Bcniglo — an  eagle  where 
best  to  build  his  eyry  have  advised  with  the 
Glasgow  Gander.  O  heavens  !  how  we  were 
bewildered  among  the  vast  objects  that  fed  that 
delirium  of  our  boyhood!  We  dimly  recog- 
nised faces  of  cliffs  wearing  dreadful  frowns; 
blind  though  they  looked,  they  seemed  sensible 
of  our  approach ;  and  we  heard  one  horrid 
monster  mutter,  "  What  brings  thee  here,  in- 
fatuated Pech — begone  !"  At  his  impotent 
malice  we  could  not  choose  but  smile,  and 
shook  our  staff  at  the  blockhead,  as  since  at 
many  a  greater  blockhead  even  than  he  have 
we  shook — and  more  than  shook  our  Crutch. 
But  as  through  "  pastures  green  and  quiet 
waters  by,"  we  pursued,  from  sunrise  to  sun- 
set, our  uncompanioned  way,  some  sweet  spot, 
surrounded  by  heather,  and  shaded  by  fern, 
would  woo  us  to  lie  down  on  its  bosom,  and 
enjoy  a  visionary  sleep !  Then  it  was  that 
the  mountains  confidentially  told  us  their 
names — and  we  got  them  all  by  heart;  for 
each  name  characterized  its  owner  by  some  of 
his  peculiar  and  prominent  qualities — as  if 
they  had  been  one  and  all  christened  by  poets 
baptizing  them  from  a  font 

"  Translurpnt,  pure, 
With  touch  elliereal  of  heaven's  fiery  rod." 

O  happy  pastor  of  a  peaceful  flock !  Thou 
hast  long  gone  to  thy  reward  !  One — two — 
three — four  successor^  hast  thou  had  in  that 
manse — (now  it  too  has  been  taken  down  and 
the  plough  gone  over  it) — and  they  all  did  their 
duty;  yet  still  is  thy  memory  fragrant  in  the 
glen;  for  deeds  like  thine  "  smell  sweet,  and 
blossom  in  the  dust!"  Under  heaven,  we 
owed  our  life  to  thy  care  of  us  in  a  brain  fever. 
Sometimes  thy  face  would  grow  grave,  never 
angry,  at  our  sallies — follies — call  them  what 
you  will,  but  not  sins.  .\nd  methinks  we  hear 
the  mild  old  man  somewhat  mournfully  say- 
ing, "Mad  boy  !  out  of  gladness  often  cometh 
grief — out  of  mirth  misery ;  but  our  prayer^ 


THE  MOORS. 


121 


when  thou  leavest  us,  shall  be,  that  never, 
never,  may  such  be  thy  fate !"  Were  those 
prayers  heard  in  heaven  and  granted  on  earth  1 
We  ask  our  heart  in  awe,  but  its  depths  are 
silent,  and  make  no  response. 

But  is  it  our  intention  to  sit  scribbling  here 
all  day]  Our  fancy  lets  our  feet  enjoy  their 
sinecure,  and  they  stretch  themselves  out  in 
indolent  longitude  beneath  the  Tent-table, 
while  we  are  settled  in  spirit,  a  silent  thought, 
on  the  battlements  of  our  cloud-castle  on  the 
summit  of  Cruachan.  What  a  prospect !  Our 
cloud-castle  rests  upon  a  foundation  of  granite 
precipices ;  and  down  along  their  hundred 
chasms,  from  which  the  eye  recoils,  we  look  on 
Loch-Etive  bearing  on  its  bosom  stationary — 
so  it  seems  in  the  sunshine — one  snow-white 
sail  !  What  brings  the  creature  there — and  on 
what  errand  may  she  be  voyaging  up  the  un- 
inhabited sea-arm  that  stretches  away  into  the 
uninhabited  mountains  1  Some  poet,  perhaps, 
steers  her — sitting  at  the  helm  in  a  dream,  and 
allowing  her  to  dance  her  own  way,  at  her  own 
will,  up  and  down  the  green  glens  and  hills  of 
the  foam-crested  waves — a  swell  rolling  in  the 
beauty  of  light  and  music  for  ever  attendant 
on  her,  as  the  Sea-mew — for  so  we  choose  to 
name  her — pursues  her  voyage — now  on  water, 
and  now,  as  the  breezes  drop,  in  the  air — ele- 
ments at  times  undistinguishable,  as  the  sha- 
dows of  the  clouds  and  of  the  mountains  mingle 
ihcir  imagery  in  the  sea.  Oh  !  that  our  head, 
like  that  of  a  spider,  were  all  studded  with 
eyes — that  our  imagination,  silting  in  the 
"palace  of  the  soul,"  (a  noble  expression, 
borrowed  or  stolen  by  Byron  from  Waller,) 
might  see  all  at  once  all  the  sights  from  centre 
to  circumference,  as  if  all  rallying  around  her 
for  her  own  delight,  and  oppressing  her  with 
the  poetry  of  nature — a  lyrical,  and  elegiac,  an 
epic,  or  a  tragic  strain.  Now  the  bright  blue 
water-gleams  enchain  her  vision,  and  are  felt 
to  constitute  the  vital,  the  essential  spirit  of 
the  whole — Loch  Awe  land-serpent,  large  as 
serpent  of  the  sea,  lying  asleep  in  the  sun, 
with  his  burnished  skin  all  bedropt  with  scales 
of  silver  and  of  gold — the  lands  of  Lorn,  mot- 
tled and  speckled  with  innumerous  lakelets, 
where  fancy  sees  millions  of  water-lilies  riding 
at  anchor  in  bays  where  the  breezes  have  fallen 
asleep — Oban,  splendid  among  the  splendours 
of  that  now  almost  motionless  mediterranean, 
the  mountain-loving  Linnhe  Loch — Jura,  Isla, 
Colonsay,  and  nameless  other  islands,  floating 
far  and  wide  away  on — on  to  Coll  and  Tiree, 
drowned  beneath  the  faint  horizon.  But  now 
all  the  eyes  in  our  spider-head  are  lost  in  one 
blaze  of  undistinguishable  glory;  for  the 
whole  Highlands  of  Scotland  are  up  in  their 
power  against  us — rivers,  lochs,  seas,  islands, 
cliflTs,  clouds,  and  mountains.  The  pen  drops 
from  our  hand,  and  here  we  are — not  on  the 
battlements  of  the  air-palace  on  the  summit  of 
Cruachan — but  sitting  on  a  tripod  or  three- 
legged  stool  at  the  mouth  of  our  Tent,  with  our 
MS.  before  us,  and  at  our  right  hand  a  quech 
of  Glenlivet,  fresh  drawn  from  yonder  ten-gal- 
lon cask — and  here's  to  the  health  of  "  Honest 
men  and  bonny  lasses"  all  over  the  globe. 

So  much  for  description — an  art  in  which 
the  Public  (God  bless  her,  where  is  she  now — 
16 


and  shall  we  ever  see  her  morel)  has  beea 
often  pleased  to  say  that  we  excel.  But  let  us 
off  to  the  Moor.  Piro  !  Ponto  !  Basta !  to  your 
paws,  and  O'Bronte,  unfurl  your  tail  to  heaven. 
Pointers  !  ye  are  a  noble  trio.  White,  0  Pon- 
to !  art  thou  as  the  foam  of  the  sea.  Piro  !  thou 
tan  of  all  tans  !  red  art  thou  as  the  dun-deer's 
hide,  and  fleet  as  he  while  thou  rangest  the 
mountain  brow,  now  hid  in  heather,  and  now 
re-appearing  over  the  rocks.  Waur  hawk, 
Basta  ! — for  finest-scented  through  be  thy  scar 
let  nostrils,  one  bad  trick  alone  hast  thou  ;  and 
whenever  that  gray  wing  glances  from  some 
pillar-stone  in  the  wilderness,  headlong  goest 
thou,  0  lawless  negro  !  But  behave  thj^self  to- 
day, Basta!  and  let  the  kestrel  unheeded  sail 
or  sun  herself  on  the  clift'.  As  for  thee, 
O'Bronte !  the  sable  dog  with  the  star-bright 
breast,  keep  thou  like  a  serf  at  our  heels,  and 
when  our  course  lies  over  the  fens  and  marshes, 
thou  mayst  sweep  like  a  hairy  hurricane  among 
the  flappers,  and  haply  to-day  grip  the  old  drake 
himself,  and  with  thy  fan-like  tail  proudly 
spread  in  the  wind,  deposit  at  thy  master's  feet, 
with  a  smile,  the  monstrous  mallard. 

But  in  what  direction  shall  we  go,  callants — 
towards  what  airt  shall  we  turn  our  faces  1 
Over  yonder  cliff's  shall  we  ascend,  and  de- 
scend into  Glen-Creran,  where  the  stony  re- 
gions that  the  ptarmigan  love  melts  away  into 
miles  of  the  grousey  heather,  which,  ere  we 
near  the  salmon-haunted  Loch  so  beautiful, 
loses  itself  in  woods  that  mellow  all  the  heights 
of  Glen  Ure  and  Fasnacloigh  with  silvan 
shades,  wherein  the  cushat  coos,  and  the  roe 
glides  through  the  secret  covert  1  Or  shall  we 
away  up  by  Kinloch-Etive,  and  Melnatorran, 
and  Mealgayre,  into  the  Solitude  of  Streams, 
that  from  all  their  lofty  sources  down  to  the  far- 
distant  Loch  have  never  yet  brooked,  nor  will 
they  ever  brook,  the  bondage  of  bridges,  save 
of  some  huge  stone  flung  across  some  chasm, 
or  trunk  of  a  tree — none  but  trunks  of  trees 
there,  and  all  dead  for  centuries — that  had 
sunk  down  where  it  grew,  and  spanned  the 
flood  that  eddies  round  it  with  a  louder  music  1 
Wild  region  !  yet  not  barren ;  for  there  are 
cattle  on  a  thousand  hills,  that,  wild  as  the 
very  red-deer,  toss  their  heads  as  they  snuff 
the  feet  of  rarest  stranger,  and  form  round  him 
in  a  half-alarmed  and  half-threatening  crescent. 
There  flocks  of  goats — outliers  from  Dalness 
— may  be  seen  as  if  following  one  another  on 
the  very  air,  along  the  lichen-stained  cliffs  that 
frown  down  unfalhomed  abysses — and  there  is 
frequent  heard  the  whirring  of  the  gorcock's 
wing,  and  his  gobble  gathering  together  his 
brood,  scattered  by  the  lightning  that  in  its 
season  volleys  through  the  silence,  else  far 
deeper  than  that  of  death  ; — for  the  silence  of 
death — that  is  of  a  churchyard  filled  with  tombs 
— is  nothing  to  the  austerity  of  the  noiselessness 
that  prevails  under  the  shadow  of  Unimore 
and  Attchorachen,  with  their  cliflTs  on  which 
the  storms  have  engraven  strange  hieroglyphi- 
cal  inscriptions,  which,  could  but  we  read  them 
wisely,  would  record  the  successive  ages  of  the 
Earth,  from  the  hour  when  fire  or  flood  first 
moulded  the  mountains,  down  to  the  very  mo- 
ment that  we  are  speaking,  and  with  small 
steel-hammer  roughening  the  edges   of  our 


122 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


flints  that  they  may  fail  not  to  murder.  Or 
shall  we  away  down  by  Armaddy,  where  the 
Fox-Hunter  dwells — and  through  the  woods  of 
Inverkinglass  and  Achran,  "double,  double, 
toil  and  trouble"  overcome  the  braes  of  Ben- 
anea  and  Mealcopucaich,  and  drop  down  like 
two  unwearied  eagles  into  Glen-Scrae,  with  a 
peep  in  the  distance  of  the  young  tower  of 
Dalmally,  and  the  old  turrets  of  Kilchurn  T 
Rich  and  rare  is  the  shooting-ground,  Hamish, 
■which  by  that  route  lies  between  this  our  Tent 
and  the  many  tarns  that  freshen  the  wilder- 
nesses of  Lochanancrioch.  Say  the  word — tip 
the  wink — tongue  on  your  cheek — up  with 
your  forefinger — and  we  shall  go;  for  hark, 
Hamish,  our  chronometer  chimes  eight — a 
long  day  is  yet  before  us — and  what  if  we  be 
benighted]  We  have  a  full  moon  and  plenty 
of  stars. 

All  these  are  splendid  schemes — but  what 
say  you,  Hamish,  to  one  less  ambitious,  and 
better  adapted  to  Old  Kit  1  Let  us  beat  all  the 
best  bits  down  by  Armaddy — the  Forge — Gleno, 
and  Inveraw.  We  may  do  that  well  in  some 
six  or  seven  hours — and  then  let  us  try  that 
famous  salmon-cast  nearest  the  mansion — 
(you  have  the  rods'?) — and  if  time  permit,  an 
hour's  trolling  in  Loch  Awe,  below  the  Pass 
of  the  Brander,  for  one  of  those  giants  that 
have  immortalized  the  names  of  a  Maule,  a 
Goldie,  and  a  Wilson.  Mercy  on  us,  Shelly, 
what  a  beard  !  You  cannot  have  been  shaved 
since  Whitsunday — and  never  saw  we  such 
lengthy  love-locks  as  those  dangling  at  your 
heels.  But  let  us  mount,  old  Surefoot — mulish 
in  naught  but  an  inveterate  aversion  to  all 
stumbling.  And  now  for  the  heather!  But 
are  you  sure,  gents,  that  wc  arc  on  ? 

And  has  it  come  to  this !  Where  is  the 
grandson  of  the  desert-born  1 

Thirty  years  ago,  and  thou  Filho  da  Puta 
wert  a  flyer!  A  fencer  beyond  compare! 
Dost  thou  remember  how,  for  a  cool  five 
hundred,  thou  clearedst  yon  canal  in  a  style 
that  rivalled  that  of  the  red-deer  across  the 
chasms  of  Cairngorm  1  All  we  had  to  do,  was 
to  hold  hard  and  not  ride  over  the  hounds, 
when,  running  breast-high  on  the  rear  of  Rey- 
nard, the  savage  pack  wakened  the  welkin 
with  thi'  tumultuous  hubbub  of  their  death-cry, 
and  whipper-in  and  huntsmen  were  flogging 
on  their  faltering  flight  in  vain  through  fields 
and  forests  flying  behind  thy  heels  that  glanced 
and  glittered  in  the  frosty  sunshine.  What 
steed  like  thee  in  all  Britain  at  a  steeple  chase  ] 
Thy  hoofs  scorned  the  strong  stubble,  and 
skimmed  the  deep  fallows,  in  which  all  other 
horses — heavy  there  as  dragoons — seemed 
fetlock-hound,  or  laboured  on  in  staggerings, 
soil-sunk  to  the  knees.  Ditches  dwindled 
beneath  thy  bounds,  and  rivulets  were  as  rills; 
or  if  in  flood  they  rudely  overran  their  banks, 
into  the  spate  plunged  thy  sixteen  hands  and 
a-half  height,  like  a  Polar  monster  leaping 
from  an  iceberg  into  the  sea,  and  then  lifting  up 
thy  small  head  and  fine  neck  and  high  shoul- 
der, like  a  Draco  from  the  weltering  waters, 
with  a  few  pr.ud  pawings  to  which  the  re- 
covered greensward  rang,  thy  whole  bold, 
bright-brown  bulk  reappeared  on  the  bank, 
crested  by  old  Christopher,  and  after  one  short 


snorting  pause,  over  the  miry  meadows — tan- 
tivy ! — tantivy  ! — away  !  away  !  away  ! 

Oh  !  son  of  a  Rep  !  were  not  those  glorious 
days'?  But  Time  has  laid  his  finger  onus 
both,  Filho  ;  and  never  more  must  we  two  be 
seen  by  the  edge  of  the  cover, 

"  When  first  the  hunter's  startling  horn  is  beard 
Upon  the  golden  hills." 

'Tis  the  last  learned  and  highest  lesson  of 
Wisdom,  Filho,  in  man's  studious  obedience 
to  Nature's  laws — to  know  u-hen  to  stop  in  his 
career.  Pride,  Passion,  Pleasure,  all  urge  him 
on ;  while  Prudence,  Propriety,  Peace,  cry 
halt!  halt!  halt!  That  mandate  we  have 
timeously  obeyed ;  and  having,  unblamed  we 
hope,  and  blameless,  carried  on  the  pastimes 
of  youth  into  manhood,  and  even  through  the 
prime  of  manhood  to  the  verge  of  age — on  that 
verge,  after  some  few  farewell  vagaries  up 
and  down  the  debatable  land,  we  had  the  reso- 
lution to  drop  our  bridle-hand,  to  unloosen  the 
spurs  from  our  heels,  and  to  dismount  from 
the  stateliest  and  swiftest  steed,  Filho,  that 
ever  wafted  mortal  man  over  moor  and  moun- 
tain like  a  storm-driven  cloud. 

You  are  sure  uc  are  on,  Hamish?  And  that 
he  will  not  run  away  ?  Come,  come,  Surefoot, 
none  of  your  funking !  A  better  mane  for 
holding  on  by  we  could  not  imagine.  Pure 
Shelty  you  say,  Hamish  1  From  his  ears  we 
should  have  suspected  his  grandfather  of 
having  been  at  least  a  Zebra. 


FLIGHT  SECOND— THE  COVES  OP 
CKUACHAN. 

Comma — semicolon — colon — full-point !  All 
three  scent-struck  into  attitude  steady  as  stones. 
That  is  beautiful.  Ponto  straight  as  a  rod — 
Piro  in  a  slight  curve — and  Basta  a  perfect 
semicircle.  O'Bronte  !  down  on  your  marrow- 
bones. But  there  is  no  need,  Hamish,  either 
for  hurry  or  haste.  On  such  ground,  and  on 
such  a  day,  the  birds  will  lie  as  if  they  were 
asleep.  Hamish,  the  flask  ! — not  the  powder- 
flask,  you  dotterel — but  the  Glenlivet.  'Tis 
thus  we  always  love  to  steady  our  hand  for 
the  first  shot.  It  gives  a  fine  feeling  to  the 
forefinger. 

Ha  !  the  heads  of  the  old  cock  and  hen,  like 
snakes,  above  the  heather — motionless,  but 
with  glancing  eyes — and  preparing  for  the 
spring.  Whirr — whi  rr — whirr — bang — bang 
tapsillery — tapsalteery  —  thud  —  thud  —  thud  ! 
Old  cock  and  old  hen  both  down,  Hamish. 
No  mean  omen,  no  awkward  augury,  of  the 
day's  sport.  Now  for  the  orphan  family — 
marked  ye  them  round 

"The  swelling  instep  of  the  mountain's  footi" 

"Faith  and  she's  the  teevil's  nainsel — that  is 
she — at  the  shutin';  for  may  I  tine  ma  mull, 
and  never  pree  sneeshin'  mair,  if  she  hae  na 
richt  and  left  murdered  fowre  o'  the  creturs!" 
— "Four! — why  we  only  covered  the  old  peo- 
ple; but  if  younkers  will  cross,  'tis  their  own 
fault  that  tiiey  bite  the  heather." — "  They're 
a'  fowre  spewin',  sir,  except  ane — and  her's 
head's  afl"— and  she's  jumpin'  about  waur  nor 


THE  MOORS. 


1S3 


ony  o'  them,  wi'  her  bluidy  neck.  I  wuss  she 
mayna  talc  tu  her  wings  again,  and  owre  the 
knowe.  But  ca'  in  that  great  toozy  ootlandish 
dowg,  sir,  for  he's  dcvourin'  tlicm — see  lioo 
he's  flingin'  them,  first  ane  and  then  anither, 
outowre  his  shoolher,  and  keppin'  them  afore 
they  touch  the  grun  in  his  mooth,  like  a 
mountebank  wi'  a  shoor  o'  oranges  !" — ^"  Ham- 
ish,  are  they  bagged?" — "  Ou  aye." — "Then 
away  to  windward,  ye  sons  of  bitches — Hea- 
vens, how  they  do  their  work!" 

Up  to  the  time  of  our  grand  climacteric  we 
loved  a  wide  range — and  thought  nothing  of 
describing  and  discussing  a  circle  often  miles 
diameter  in  a  day,  up  to  our  hij)s  in  heather. 
But  for  these  dozen  or  twenty  years  bypast, 
we  have  preferred  a  narrow  beat,  snugly  seat- 
ed on  a  sheltry,  and  pad  the  hoof  on  the  hill 
no  more.  Yonder  is  the  kind  of  ground  we 
now  love — for  why  should  an  old  man  make  a 
toil  of  a  pleasure?  'Tis  one  of  the  many 
small  coves  belonging  to  Glen-Eiive,  and  looks 
down  from  no  very  great  elevation  upon  the 
Loch.  Its  bottom,  and  sides  nearly  halfway 
up,  are  green  pasture>,  sheep-nibbled  as  smooth 
as  a  lawn — and  a  rill,  dropping  in  diamonds 
from  the  cliffs  at  its  upper  end,  betrays  itself, 
•where  the  water  is  invisible,  by  a  line  of  still 
livelier  verdure.  An  old  dilapidated  sheepfold 
is  the  only  building,  and  seems  to  make  the 
scene  still  more  solitary.  Above  the  green 
pastures  are  the  richest  beds  and  bosoms  of 
heather  ever  bees  murmured  on — and  above 
them  nothing  but  bare  cliffs.  A  stifl"  breeze 
is  now  blowing  into  this  cove  from  the  sca- 
loch  ;  and  we  shall  slaughter  the  orphan  fami- 
ly at  our  leisure.  'Tis  probable  they  have 
dropped — single  bird  after  single  bird — or  in 
twos  and  threes — all  along  the  first  line  of 
heather  that  met  their  flight;  and  if  so,  we 
shall  pop  them  like  partridges  in  turnips. 
Three  points  in  the  game!  Each  dog,  it  is 
manifest,  stands  to  a  ditferent  lot  of  feathers  ; 
and  wo  shall  slaughter  them,  without  dis- 
mounting, seriiitiin.  No,  Hamish — we  must 
dismount — give  us  your  shoulder — that  will 
do.  The  Crutch — now  we  arc  on  our  pins. 
Take  a  lesson.  Whirr!  Bang!  Bag  num- 
ber one,  Hamish.  Ay,  that  is  right,  Ponto — 
back  Basla.  Ditto,  ditto.  Now  Ponto  and 
Basta  both  back  Piro — right  and  left  this  time 
— and  not  one  of  the  brood  will  be  left  to  cheep 
of  Cliristopher.  Be  ready — attend  us  with  the 
other  double-barrel.  Whirr  !  Bang — bang — 
bang — bang !  What  think  you  of  that,  you  son 
of  the  mist?  There  is  a  shower  of  feathers! 
They  arc  all  at  sixes  and  sevens  upon  the 
greensward  at  the  edge  of  the  heather.  Seven 
birds  at  four  shots  !  The  whole  family  is  now 
disposed  of — father,  mother,  and  eleven  chil- 
dren. If  such  fire  still  be  in  the  dry  wood, 
what  must  it  have  been  in  the  green  ?  Let  us 
lie  down  in  the  sheltered  shade  of  the  mossy 
walls  of  the  sheepfold — take  a  drop  of  Glen- 
livet — and  philosophize. 

Hollo!  Hamish,  who  are  these  strange,  sus- 
picious-looking strangers  thitherwards-bound, 
as  hallan-shakcr  a  set  as  may  be  seen  on  an 
August  day  1  Ay,  ay,  we  ken  the  clan.  A 
•week's  residence  to  a  man  of  gumption  gives 
an  insight  into  a  neighbourhood.     Unerring 


physiognomists  and  phrenologists  are  we,  and 
what  with  instinctive,  and  what  with  intuitive 
knowledge,  we  keek  in  a  moment  through  all 
disguise.  He  in  the  centre  of  the  group  is 
the  stickit  minister — on  his  right  stands  the 
drunken  dominie — on  his  left  the  captain,  who 
in  that  raised  look  retains  token  of  deUriitm 
irciiiens — the  land-louper  behind  him  is  the 
land-measurer,  who  would  be  well  to  do  in 
the  world  were  he  "monarch  of  all  he  sur- 
veyed,"— but  has  been  long  out  at  elbows,  and 
his  society  not  much  courted  since  he  was 
rude  to  the  auld  wife  at  the  time  the  gudeman 
was  at  the  peats.  That  fine  tall  youth,  the 
widow's  son  in  Gleno,  and  his  friend  the 
Sketcher,  with  his  portfolio  under  his  arm, 
are  in  indifferent  company,  Hamish  ;  but  who, 
pray,  may  be  the  phenomenon  in  plush,  with 
bow  and  arrow,  and  tasseled  horn,  bonnet 
jauntily  screwed  to  the  sinister,  glass  stuck 
in  socket,  and  precisely  in  the  middle  of  his 
puckered  mouth  a  cigar.  You  do  not  say  so 
— a  grocer's  apprentice  from  the  Gorbals ! 

No  need  of  confabulating  there,  gemmen,  on 
the  knowe — come  forward  and  confront  Chris- 
topher North.  We  find  we  have  been  too  se- 
vere in  our  strictures.  After  all,  they  are  not 
a  bad  set  of  fellows,  as  the  world  goes — im- 
prudence must  not  be  too  harshly  condemned 
— Shakspeare  taught  us  to  see  the  soul  of  good 
in  things  evil — these  two  are  excellent  lads ; 
and,  as  for  impertinence,  it  often  proceeds 
from  mmivnis  honle,  and  with  a  glance  we  shall 
replace  the  archer  behind  his  counter. 

How  goes  it,  Cappy  ?  Rather  stiff  in  the 
back,  minister,  with  the  mouth  of  the  fowling- 
piece  peeping  out  between  the  tails  of  your 
long  coat,  and  the  butt  at  the  back  of  your 
head,  bj'  way  of  bolster?  You  will  find  it 
more  comfortable  to  have  her  in  hand.  That 
bamboo,  dominie,  is  well  known  to  be  an  air- 
gun.  Have  you  your  horse-pistol  with  you 
to-day,  surveyor  ?  Sagittarius,  think  you,  you 
could  hit,  at  twoscore,  a  haystack  flying?  Sit 
down,  gentlemen,  and  let's  have  a  crack. 

So  ho !  so  ho  !  so  ho !  W^e  see  her  black 
eyes  beneath  a  primrose  tuft  on  the  brae.  In 
spring  all  one  bank  of  blossoms ;  but  'tis 
barish  now  and  sheep-nibbled,  though  few 
eyes  but  our  own  could  have  thus  detected 
there  the  brown  back  of  Mawkin.  Dominie, 
your  Bamboo.  Shoot  her  sitting?  Fie  fie — 
no,  no.  Kick  her  up,  Hamish.  There  she 
goes.  We  are  out  of  practice  at  single  ball 
— but  whizz  !  she  has  it  between  the  shoul 
ders.  Head  over  heels  she  has  started  an 
other — why,  that's  funny — give  us  your  bow 
and  arrow  you  green  grocer — twang !  withic 
an  inch  of  her  fud.  Gentlemen,  suppose  -we 
tip  you  a  song.    Join  all  in  the  chorus. 

THE    rOWCHER's    SONG. 

When  I  was  boon  apprentice 

In  vaniotis  Zoomerzet  Share, 
Laiilts!  1  zerved  my  nieester  truly 

Vor  neerly  zeven  veer, 
fntil  1  took  to  Poirchine, 
Az  you  zhall  quickly  heer. 
Cho.   Ou  !  'twas  ma  delycht  m  a  shiny  nighl. 
In  the  zeason  of  tlie  year: 
Ou  !  'twas  ma  delycht  in  a  shiny  night. 
In  the  zeason  of  the  year. 

Az  me  and  ma  coomerades  , 

Were  zetting  on  a  snare, 


124 


RECREATIOrsS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


Lanks!  the  Geamkeepnors  caem  oop  to  u/; 

Vor  tlicin  we  did  na  kere, 
'Case  we  could  fight  or  wrestle,  lads, 
Jump  over  ony  wheere. 
Clio.  Ou  !  'twas  Ilia  dclycht  in  a  shiny  night. 
In  the  zeazon  of  the  year : 
Ou  !  'twas  ma  delyeht  in  a  shiny  night, 
In  the  zeazon  of  the  year. 

Az  we  went  oot  wan  morning 
Atwixt  your  vive  and  zeex. 
We  cautcht  a  heere  alive,  ma  lads, 

We  found  un  in  a  deetrh  ; 
We  popt  un  in  a  bag,  ma  lads, 

We  yoiten  oif  vor  town. 
We  took  un  to  a  neeghboor's  hoose, 

And  we  zold  un  vor  a  crown. 
We  zold  un  vor  a  crown,  ma  lads, 
But  a  wont  tell  ye  wheere. 
Cuo.  Ou  :  'twas  ma  delyght  in  a  shiny  night. 
In  the  zeazon  of  llie  year: 
Ou  !  'twas  ma  delyeht  in  a  shiny  night, 
In  the  zeazon  of  the  year. 

Then  here's  success  to  Powching, 

Vor  A  doos  think  it  feere. 
And  here's  look  to  ere  a  gentleman 

Az  wans  to  buy  a  heere, 
And  here's  to  ere  u  eeamkecpoor, 
A'/,  woona  zell  it  deerc. 
Clio.  Ou  :  'twas  ma  delyght  in  a  shiny  nighi. 
In  the  zeazon  of  the  year  : 
Ou  !  'twas  ma  delyght  in  a  shiny  night. 
In  the  zeazon  of  the  year. 

The  Presb3'tery  might  have  overlooked  your 
fault,  Mac,  for  the  case  was  not  a  flagrant  one, 
and  you  were  willing,  we  understand,  to  make 
her  an  honest  woman.  Do  you  think  you 
could  recollect  one  of  your  sermons?  In 
action  and  in  unction  you  had  not  your  su- 
perior in  the  Synod.  Do  give  us  a  screed 
about  Nimrod  or  Nebuchadnezzar.  No  dese- 
cration in  a  sermon — better  omitted,  we  grant, 
prayer  and  psalm.  Should  you  be  unable  lo 
reproduce  an  entire  discourse,  yet  by  dove- 
tailing— that  is,  a  bit  from  one  and  a  bit  from 
another — surely  you  can  be  at  no  loss  for  half 
an  hour's  miscellaneous  matter — heads  and 
tails.  Or  suppose  we  let  you  off  with  a  View 
of  the  Church  Question.  You  look  glum  and 
shake  your  head.  Can  you,  Mac,  how  can 
you  resist  that  Pulpit  1 

Behold  in  that  semicircular  low-browed  clifl!", 
backed  by  a  range  of  bonny  green  braes  dip- 
ping down  from  the  hills  that  do  themselves 
come  shelving  from  the  mountains,  what  ap- 
pears at  first  sight  to  be  a  cave,  but  is  merely 
a  blind  window,  as  it  were,  a  few  feet  deep, 
arched  and  faced  like  a  beautiful  work  of  ma- 
sonry, though  chisel  never  touched  it.  nor 
man's  hand  dropped  the  line  along  the  living 
stone  thus  wrought  by  nature's  self,  who  often 
shows  us,  in  her  mysterious  processes,  re- 
semblances of  effects  produced  by  us  her 
children  on  the  same  materials  by  our  more 
most  elaborate  art.  It  is  a  very  pulpit,  and 
that  projecting  slab  is  the  sounding-board. 
That  upright  stone  in  front  of  it,  without  the 
aid  of  fancy,  may  well  be  thought  the  desk. 
To  us  sitting  here,  this  spot  of  greensward  is 
the  floor;  the  sky  that  hangs  low,  as  if  it  loved 
it,  the  roof  of  the  sanctuary;  nor  is  there  any 
harm  in  saying,  that  we,  if  we  choose  to  think 
so,  are  sitting  in  a  kirk. 

Shall  we  mount  the  pulpit  by  that  natural 
flight  of  steps,  and,  like  a  Sedgwick  or  a  Buck- 
land,  with  a  specimen  in  one  hand,  and  before 
our  eyes  mountains  whose  faces  the  scars  of 
thunder  have  intrenched,  tell  you  how  the 
giobe,  after  formation  on  formation,  became 


fit  residence  for  new-created  man,  and  habit 
able  no  more  to  flying  dragons  ]  Or  shall  we, 
rather,  taking  the  globe  as  we  find  it,  speculate 
on  the  changes  wrought  on  its  surface  by  as, 
whom  God  gave  feet  to  tread  the  earth,  and 
faces  to  behold  the  heavens,  and  souls  to  soar 
into  the  heaven  of  heavens,  on  the  wings  of 
hope,  aspiring  through  temporal  shades  to 
eternal  light  1 

Brethren  ! — The  primarj'  physical  wants  of 
the  human  being  are  food,  clothing,  shelter, 
and  defence.  To  supply  these  he  has  invented 
all  his  arts.  Hunger  and  thirst  cultivate  the 
earth.  Fear  builds  castles  and  embattles  cities. 
The  animal  is  clothed  by  nature  against  cold 
and  storm,  and  shelters  himself  in  his  den. 
Man  builds  his  habitation,  and  weaves  his 
clothing.  With  horns,  or  teeth,  or  claws,  the 
strong  and  deadly  weapons  with  which  nature 
has  furiiished  them,  the  animal  kinds  wage 
their  war;  he  forges  swords  and  spears,  and 
constructs  implements  of  destruction  that  will 
send  death  almost  as  far  as  his  eye  can  mark 
his  foe,  and  sweep  down  thousands  together. 
The  animal  that  goes  in  quest  of  his  food,  that 
pursues  or  flies  from  his  enemy,  has  feet,  or 
wings,  or  fins;  but  man  bids  the.  horse,  the 
camel,  the  elephant,  bear  him,  and  yokes  them 
to  his  chariot.  If  the  strong  animal  would 
cross  the  river,  he  swims.  Man  spans  it  M-ith 
a  bridge.  But  the  most  powerful  uf  them  all 
stands  on  the  beach  and  gazes  on  the  ocean. 
Man  constructs  a  ship,  and  encircles  the  globe. 
Other  creatures  must  traverse  the  element  na- 
ture has  assigned,  with  means  she  has  furnish- 
ed. He  chooses  his  element,  and  makes  hi.s 
means.  Can  the  fish  traverse  the  waters!  So 
can  he.  Can  the  bird  fly  the  air!  So  can  he. 
Can  the  camel  speed  over  the  desert  1  He  shall 
bear  man  as  his  rider. 

"That's  beautifu'!"  "Tuts,  haud  your 
tongue,  and  tak  a  chow.  There's  some  shag." 
"  Is  he  gaun  to  be  lang,  Hamish  1"  "  Whceshtl 
you  micht  as  weel  be  speaking  in  the  kirk." 

But  to  see  what  he  owes  to  inventive  art, 
we  should  compare  man,  not  with  inferior 
creatures,  but  with  himself,  looking  over  the 
face  of  human  society,  as  history  or  observa- 
tion shows  it.  We  shall  find  him  almost 
sharing  the  life  of  brutes,  or  removed  from 
them  by  innumerable  difl!erences,  and  incalcu- 
lable degrees.  In  one  place  we  see  him  har- 
bouring in  caves,  naked,  living,  we  might 
almost  say,  on  prey,  seeking  from  chance  his 
wretched  sustenance,  food  which  he  eats  just 
as  he  finds  it.  He  lives  like  a  beggar  on  the 
alms  of  nature.  Turn  to  another  land,  and 
you  see  the  face  of  the  earth  covered  with  the 
works  of  his  hand — his  habitation,  wide-spread- 
ing stately  cities — his  clothing  and  the  orna- 
ments of  his  person  culled  and  fashioned  from 
the  three  kingdoms  of  nature.  For  his  food 
the  face  of  the  earth  bears  him  tribute;  and 
the  seasons  and  changes  of  heaven  cfincur 
with  his  own  art  in  ministering  to  his  hoard. 
This  is  the  difl"crcnce  which  man  has  made  in 
I  his  own  condition  by  the  use  of  his  intellectual 
[  powers,  awakened  and  goaded  on  by  the  ne- 
'  cessities  of  his  physical  constitution. 
j  The  various  knowledge,  the  endlessly  multi- 
1  plied  observation,  the  experience  and  reasoa- 


THE  MOORS. 


125 


ings  of  man  added  to  man,  of  generation  fol- 
lowing generation,  which  were  required  to 
bring  to  a  moderate  state  of  advancement  the 
great  primary  arts  subservient  to  physical  life 
— the  arts  of  providing  food,  habitation,  cloth- 
ing, and  defence,  u-e  are  utterly  unable  to  con- 
ceive. We  are  bom  to  the  knoMiedge,  which 
was  collected  by  the  labours  of  many  ages. 
How  slowly  were  those  arts  reared  up  which 
still  remain  to  us  !  How  many  which  had  la- 
boriously been  brought  to  perfection,  have 
been  displaced  by  superior  invention,  and  fall- 
en into  oblivion  !  Fenced  in  as  we  are  by  the 
works  of  our  predecessors,  we  see  but  a  small 
part  of  the  power  of  man  contending  with  the 
difficulties  of  his  lot.  But  what  a  wonderful 
scene  would  be  opened  before  our  eyes,  with 
what  intense  interest  should  we  look  on,  if  we 
could  indeed  behold  him  armed  only  with  his 
own  implanted  powers,  and  going  forth  to  con- 
quer the  creation  !  If  we  could  see  him  be- 
ginning by  subduing  evils,  and  supplying 
painful  wants — going  on  to  turn  those  evils 
and  wants  into  the  means  of  enjoyment — and 
at  length,  in  the  wantonness  and  pride  of  his 
power,  filling  his  existence  with  luxuries; — if 
we  could  see  him  from  his  first  step,  in  the  un- 
tamed though  fruitful  wilderness,  advancing  to 
subdue  the  soil,  to  tame  and  multiply  the  herds 
— from  bending  the  branches  into  a  bower,  to 
fell  the  forest  and  quarry  the  rock — seizing 
into  his  own  hands  the  element  of  fire,  direct- 
ing its  action  on  substances  got  from  the 
bowels  of  the  earth — fashioning  wood,  and 
stone,  and  metal,  to  the  will  of  his  thought — 
searching  the  nature  of  plants  to  spin  their 
fibres,  or  with  their  virtues  to  heal  their  dis- 
eases; — if  we  could  see  him  raise  his  first 
cities,  launch  his  first  ship,  calling  the  winds 
and  waters  to  be  his  servants,  and  to  do  his 
work — changing  the  face  of  the  earth — form- 
ing lakes  and  rivers — joining  seas,  or  stretch- 
ing the  continent  itself  into  the  dominion  of 
the  sea; — if  we  could  do  all  this  in  imagina- 
tion, then  -should  Ave  understand  something  of 
what  man's  intellect  has  done  for  his  physical 
life,  and  what  the  necessities  of  his  physical 
life  have  done  in  forcing  into  action  all  the 
powers  of  his  intelligence. 

But  there  are  still  higher  considerations 
arising  from  the  influence  of  man's  physical 
necessities  on  the  destiny  of  the  species.  It  is 
this  subjugation  of  natural  evil,  and  this  cre- 
ated dominion  of  art,  that  prepares  the  earth  to 
be  the  scene  of  his  social  existence.  His  hard 
conquest  was  not  the  end  of  his  toil.  He  has 
conquered  the  kingdom  in  which  he  was  to 
dwell  in  his  state.  The  full  unfolding  of  his 
moral  powers  was  only  possible  in  those  states 
of  society  which  are  thus  brought  into  being 
by  his  conflict  with  all  his  physical  faculties 
against  all  the  stubborn  powers  of  the  material 
universe ;  for  out  of  the  same  conquest  Wealth 
is  created.  In  this  progress,  and  by  means 
thus  brought  into  action,  society  is  divided 
into  classes.  Property  itself,  the  allotment  of 
the  earth,  takes  place,  because  it  is  the  bosom 
of  the  earth  that  yields  food.  That  great  foun- 
dation of  the  stability  of  communities  is  thus 
connected  with  the  same  necessity;  and  in  the 
same  progress,  and  out  of  the  same  causes, 


arise  the  first  great  Laws  by  which  society  is 
held  together  in  order.  Thus  that  whole  won- 
derful development  of  the  Moral  Nature  of 
man,  in  all  those  various  forms  which  fill  up 
the  history  of  the  race,  in  part  arises  out  of, 
and  is  always  intimately  blended  with,  the  la- 
bours to  which  he  has  been  aroused  by  these 
first  great  necessities  of  his  physical  nature. 
But  had  the  tendency  to  increase  his  numbers 
been  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  means  pro- 
vided by  nature,  and  infinitely  multipliable  by 
art,  for  the  subsistence  of  human  beings,  how 
could  this  magnificent  march  have  moved  onl 
Hence  we  may  understand  on  what  ground 
the  ancient  nations  revered  so  highly,  and 
even  deified  the  authors  of  the  primary  arts  of 
life.  They  considered  not  the  supply  of  the 
animal  wants  merely;  but  they  contemplated 
that  mighty  change  in  the  condition  of  man- 
kind to  which  these  arts  have  given  origin.  It 
is  on  this  ground,  that  they  had  raised  the  cha- 
racter of  human  life,  that  Virgil  assigns  them 
their  place  in  the  dwellings  of  bliss,  among  de- 
voted patriots  and  holy  priests,  among  those 
whom  song  or  prophecy  had  inspired,  among 
those  benefactors  of  the  race  whose  names 
were  to  live  for  ever,  giving  his  own  most 
beautiful  expression  to  the  common  sentiment 
of  mankind. 

"Hie  manus  ob  patriam  pusrnando  vulnera  passi, 
Quique  sarenlotcs  casti,  diim  vita  manebat, 
Quique  pii  vales,  et  Phoebo  digna  locuti, 
Inventaa  ant  qui  vitam  excoluere  per  artes, 
Quique  siii  memores  alios  fecere  nierendo  ; 
Omnibus  his  niveA  cinguntur  tempora  vitt&.." 

"That's  Latin  for  the  minister  and  the  domi- 
nie." "  Wheesht !  Heard  you  ever  the  like  o' 
that!  Though  I  dinna  understaun  a  word  o't, 
it  gars  me  a'  grue."  "  Wheest !  wheesht ! — 
we  maun  pit  him  intil  Paurliment" — "Rather 
intil  the  Gfeneral  Assembly,  to  tussle  wi'  the 
wild  men."  "He's  nae  Moderate,  man;  and 
gin  I'm  no  sair  mistaen,  he's  a  wild  man  him- 
sel,  and  wuU  uphaud  the  A'eto."  "Wheesht! 
wheesht  I  wheesht !" 

True,  that  in  savage  life  men  starve.  But 
is  that  any  proof  that  nature  has  cursed  the 
race  with  a  fatal  tendency  to  multiply  beyond 
the  means  of  subsistence  1  None  whatever. 
Attend  for  a  little  to  this  point.  Of  the  real 
power  of  the  bodily  appetites  for  food,  and  the 
sway  they  may  attain  over  the  moral  nature 
of  the  mind,  we,  who  are  protected  by  our 
place  among  the  arrangements  of  civil  society 
from  greatly  suffering  under  it,  can  indeed 
form  no  adequate  conception.  Let  us  not  now 
speak  of  those  dreadful  enormities  which,  in 
the  midst  of  dismal  famine,  are  recorded  to 
have  been  perpetrated  by  civilized  men,  when 
the  whole  moral  soul,  with  all  its  strongest  affec- 
tions and  instinctive  abhorrences,  has  sunk 
prostrate  under  the  force  of  that  animal  suflfer- 
ing.  But  the  power  of  which  we  speak,  as 
attained  by  this  animal  feeling,  subsists  habi- 
tually among  whole  tribes  and  nations.  It  is 
that  power  which  it  acquires  over  the  mind 
of  the  savage,  who  is  frequently  exposed  to 
suffer  its  severity,  and  who  hunts  for  himself 
the  food  with  which  he  is  to  appease  it.  Com- 
pare the  mind  of  the  human  being  as  you  are 
accustomed  to  behold  him,  knowing  the  return 
of  this  sensation  only  as  a  grateful  incitement 
1,2 


126 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


to  take  the  ready  nourishment  which  is  spread 
for  his  repast,  with  that  of  his  fellow-man 
bearing  through  the  lonely  woods  the  gnaw- 
ing pang  that  goads  him  to  his  prey.  Hunger 
is  in  his  heart;  hunger  bears  along  his  un- 
fatiguing  feet;  hunger  lies  in  the  strength  of 
his  arm  ;  hunger  watches  in  his  eye ;  hunger 
listens  in  his  ear;  as  he  couches  down  in  his 
covert,  silently  waiting  the  approach  of  his  ex- 
pected spoil,  this  is  the  sole  thought  that  fills 
his  aching  breast — "I  shall  satisfy  my  hunger!" 
When  his  deadly  aim  has  brought  his  victim 
to  the  ground,  this  is  the  thought  that  springs 
up  as  he  rushes  to  seize  it,  "  I  have  got  food 
for  my  hungry  soul !"  What  must  be  the 
usurpation  of  animal  nature  here  over  the 
whole  man !  It  is  not  merely  the  simple  pain 
as  if  it  were  the  forlornncss  of  a  human  creature 
bearing  about  his  famishing  existence  in  help- 
lessness and  despair — though  that,  too,  is  indeed 
a  true  picture  of  some  states  of  our  race;  but 
here  is  not  a  suffering  and  sinking  wretch — 
he  is  a  strong  hunter,  and  puts  forth  his 
strength  fiercely  under  the  urgency  of  this 
passion.  All  his  might  in  the  chase,  all  pride 
of  speed,  and  strength,  and  skill — all  thoughts 
of  long  and  hard  endurance — all  images  of 
perils  past — all  remembrances  and  all  fore- 
sight— are  gathered  on  that  one  strong  and 
keen  desire — are  bound  down  to  the  sense  of 
that  one  bitter  animal  want.  These  feelings 
recurring  day  by  day  in  the  sole  toil  of  his  life, 
bring  upon  his  soul  a  vehemence  and  power 
of  desire  in  this  object,  of  which  we  can  have 
no  conception,  till  he  becomes  subjeclcd  to 
hunger  as  to  a  mighty  animal  passion — a 
passion  such  as  it  rages  in  those  fierce  animal 
kinds  which  it  drives  with  such  ferocity  on 
their  prey.  He  knows  hunger  as  the  wolf 
knows  it — he  goes  forth  with  his  burning  heart, 
like  the  tiger  to  lap  blood.  But  turn  to  man 
in  another  condition  to  which  he  has  been 
brought  by  the  very  agency  of  his  phvsical  on 
his  intellectual  and  moral  being!  How  far 
removed  is  he  now  from  that  daily  contention 
with  such  evils  as  these  !  How  much  does  he 
feel  himself  assured  against  them  by  belong- 
ing to  the  great  confederacy  of  social  life! 
How  much  is  it  veiled  from  his  eyes  by  the 
many  artificial  circumstances  in  which  the 
satisfaction  of  the  want  is  involved!  The 
work  in  which  he  labours  the  whole  day — on 
which  his  eyes  are  fixed  and  his  hands  toil — 
is  something  altogether  unconnected  with  his 
own  wants — connected  with  distant  wants  and 
purposes  of  a  thousand  other  men  in  which  he 
has  no  participation.  And  as  far  as  it  is  a 
work  of  skill,  he  has  to  fix  his  mind  on  ob- 
jects and  purposes  so  totally  removed  from 
himself,  that  they  all  tend  still  more  to  sever 
his  thoughts  from  his  own  necessities  :  and 
thus  it  is  that  civilization  raises  his  moral 
character,  when  it  protects  almost  every  hu- 
man being  in  a  country  from  that  subjection  to 
this  passion,  to  which  even  noble  tribes  are 
bound  down  in  the  wildernesses  of  nature. 

"It's  an  awful  thing  hunger,  Hamish,  sure 
aneugh;  but  I  wash  he  was  dune;  for  that 
vice  o'  his  sing-sanging  is  makin'  me  unco 
sleepy — and  ance  I  fa'  owre,  I'm  no  easy 
wauKeniu'.    But  wha's  that  snorrin'  V 


Yet  it  is  the  most  melancholy  part  of  all 
such    speculation,   to   observe   what   a   wide 
gloom  is  cast  over  them  by  this  severe  neces- 
sity, which  is  nevertheless  the  great  and  con- 
stant cause  of  the  improvement  of  their  condi- 
tion.    It  is  not  sutfering  alone — for  that  they 
may  be  inured  to  bear, — but  the  darkness  of 
the  understanding,  and   the   darkness   of  the 
heart,  which  comes  on  under  the  oppression 
of  toil,  that  is  miserable  to  see.     Our  fellow- 
men,  born  with  the  same  spirit  as  ourselves, 
seem  yet  denied  the  common  privileges  of  that 
spirit.     They  seem  to  bring  faculties  into  the 
world  that  cannot  be  unfolded,  and  powers  of 
affection  and  desire  which  not  their  fault  but 
the  lot  of  their  birth  will  pervert  and  degrade. 
There  is  a  humiliation  laid  upon  our  nature 
in  the  doom  which  seems  thus  to  rest  upon  a 
great  portion  of  our  species,  which,  while  it 
requires  our  most  considerate  compassion  for 
those  who  are  thus  depressed,  compels  us  to 
humble  ourselves  under  the  sense  of  our  own 
participation  in  the  nature  from  which  it  flows. 
Therefore,  in  estimating  the  worth,  the  virtue 
of  our    fellow   men,   whom    Providence    has 
placed  in  a  lot  that  yields  to  them  the  means, 
and  little  more  than  the  means,  of  supporting 
life  in  themselves  and  those  born   of  them,  let 
us  never  forget  how  intimate  is  the  necessary 
union  between  the  wants  of  the  body  and  the 
thoughts  of  the   soul.     Let  us  remember,  that 
over  a  great  portion  of  humanity,  the  soul  is 
in  a  struggle  for  its  independence  and  power 
with  the  necessities  of  that  nature  in  which  it 
is  enveloped.     It  has  to  support  itself  against 
sickening,  or  irritating,  or  maddening  thoughts 
inspired  by  weariness,  lassitude,  want,  or  the 
fear  of  want.     It  is  chained  down  to  the  earth 
by  the    influence   of  one  great   and   constant 
occupation — that  of  providing  the  means  of  its 
mortal  existence.    When  it  shows  itself  shook 
and   agilated,  or  overcome   in    the   struggle, 
what  ought  to  be  the  ihouErhts  and  feelings  of 
the  wise  for  poor  humanity !     When,  on   the 
other  hand,  we  see   nature  preserving  itself 
pure,  bold,  and   happy  amidst   the   perpetual 
threatenings  or  assaults  of  those  evils  from 
which  it  cannot  fly,  and  though  oppressed  by 
its  own  weary   wants,  forgetting  them   all  in 
that   love   which   ministers    to   the  wants   of 
others — when  we  see   the  brow  wrinkled  and 
drenched   by  incessant   toil,  the  body  in  the 
power  of  its  prime  bowed   down  to  the  dust, 
and  the  whole   frame  in  which  the  immortal 
spirit  abides  marked,  but  not  dishonoured,  by 
its  slavery  to  fate — and  when,  in  the  midst  of 
all  this  ceaseless  depression  and  oppression, 
from  which  man  must  never  hope  to  escape 
on  earth,  we  see  him  still  seeking  and  still 
finding  joy,  delight,  and  happiness  in  the  finer 
affections  of  his  spirtiual  being,  giving  to  the 
lips  of  those  he  loves  the  scanty  morsel  earned 
by  his  own  hungry  and  thirsty  toil,  purchas- 
ing by  sweat,  sickness,  and  fever.  Education 
and   Instruction  and  Religion    to   the   young 
creatures  who  delight  him  who  is  starving  for 
their  sakes,  resting  with  gratitude  on  that  day, 
whose  return  is  ever  like  a  fresh  fountain  to 
his  exhausted  and  weary  heart,  and  preserving 
a  profound  and  high  sense   of  his  own  im- 
mortality among  all  the  earth-bora  toils  and 


THE  MOORS. 


127 


troubles  that  would  in  vain  chain  him  down  1 
to  the  dust, — when  we  see  all  this,  and  think 
of  all  this,  we  feel  indeed  how  rich  may  be  the 
poorest  of  the  poor,  and  learn  to  respect  the 
moral  being  of  man  in  its  triumphs  over  the 
power  of  his  physical  nature.  But  we  do  not 
learn  to  doubt  or  deny  the  wisdom  of  the 
.  Creator.  We  do  not  learn  from  all  the  strug- 
gles, and  all  these  defeats,  and  all  these  vic- 
tories, and  all  these  triumphs,  that  God  sent 
us  his  creatures  into  this  life  to  starve,  be- 
cause the  air,  the  earth,  and  the  waters  have 
not  wherewithal  to  feed  the  mouths  that  gape 
for  food  through  all  the  elements !  Nor  do 
we  learn  that  want  is  a  crime,  and  poverty  a 
sin — and  that  they  who  would  toil,  but  cannot, 
and  they  who  can  toil,  but  have  no  work  set 
before  them,  are  intruders  at  Nature's  table, 
and  must  be  driven  by  those  who  are  able  lo 
pay  for  their  seats  to  famine,  starvation,  and 
death — almost  denied  a  burial ! — Finis.  Amen. 
Often  has  it  been  our  lot,  by  our  conversa- 
tional powers,  to  set  the  table  on  a  snore.  The 
more  stirring  the  theme,  the  more  soporific  the 
sound  of  our  silver  voice.  Look  there,  we  be- 
seech you  !  In  a  small  spot  of  "  stationary  sun- 
shine," lie  Hamish,  and  yurefoot,andO'Bronte, 
and  Ponto,  and  Piro,  and  Basta,  all  sound 
asleep  !  Dogs  are  troubled  sleepers — but  these 
four  are  now  like  the  dreamless  dead.  Horses, 
too,  seem  often  to  be  witch-ridden  in  their 
sleep.  But  at  this  moment  Surefoot  is  stretch- 
ed more  like  a  stone  than  a  shelty  in  the  land 
of  Nod.  As  for  Hamish,  were  he  to  lie  so 
braxy-like  by  himself  on  the  hill,  he  would  be 
awakened  by  the  bill  of  the  raven  digging  into 
his  sockets.  We  are  Morpheus  and  Orpheus 
in  one  incarnation — the  very  Pink  of  Poppy — 
the  true  spirit  of  Opium — of  Laudanum  the 
concentrated  Essence — of  the  black  Drop  the 
Gnome. 

Indeed,  gentlemen,  you  have  reason  to  be 
ashamed  of  yourselves — but  where  is  the  awk- 
ward squad  1  Clean  gone.  They  have  stolen 
a  march  on  us,  and  Avhile  we  have  been  preach- 
ing they  have  been  poaching — sans  mandate 
of  the  Marquis  and  Monzie.  We  may  catch 
them  ere  close  of  day;  and,  if  they  have  a 
smell  of  slaughter,  we  shall  crack  their 
sconces  with  our  crutch.  No  apologies,  Ha- 
mish— 'tis  only  making  the  matter  worse ;  but 
we  expected  better  things  of  the  dogs.  O'Bronte  ! 
fie !  fie  !  sirrah.  Your  sire  would  not  have 
fallen  asleep  during  a  speech  of  ours — and 
such  a  speech ! — he  would  hav^e  sat  it  out 
without  winking — at  each  more  splendid  pas- 
sage testifying  his  delight  by  a  yowl.  Leap 
over  the  Crutch,  you  reprobate,  and  let  vis  see 
thee  scour.  Look  at  him,  Hamish,  already 
beckoning  to  us  on  his  hurdis  from  the  hill-top. 
Let  us  scale  those  barriers — and  away  over  the 
table-land  between  that  summit  and  the  head 
of  Gleno.  No  sooner  said  than  done,  and  here 
we  are  on  the  level — such  a  level  as  the  ship 
finds  on  the  main  sea,  when  in  the  storm-lull 
she  rides  up  and  down  the  green  swell,  before 
the  tradewinds  that  cool  the  tropics.  The  sur- 
face of  this  main  land-sea  is  black  in  the  gloom, 
and  green  in  the  glimmer,  and  purple  in  the 
light,  and  crimson  in  the  sunshine.  Oh,  never 
'ooks  nature  so  magnificent 


"As  in  this  varying  and  uncertain  weather, 
When  gloom  anif  glory  force  themselves  together. 
When  calm  seems  stormy,  and  tempestuous  night 
At  day's  meridian  lowers  like  noon  of  night !" 

Whose  are  these  fine  lines  1  Hooky  Walker, 
OcR  OWN.  Dogs !  Down — down — down — be 
stonelike,  0  Shelty! — and  Hamish,  sink  thou 
into  the  heather  like  a  lizard;  for  if  these  old 
dim  eyes  of  ours  may  be  in  aught  believed, 
yonder  by  the  birches  stands  a  Red-Deer  snuf- 
fing the  east  wind  !  Hush!  hush!  hush!  He 
suspects  an  enem}'^  in  that  airt — but  death 
comes  upon  him  with  stealthy  foot,  from  the 
west ;  and  if  Apollo  and  Diana — the  divinities 
we  so  long  have  worshipped — be  now  propi-- 
tious — his  antlers  shall  be  entangled  in  the 
heather,  and  his  hoofs  beat  the  heavens.  Ha- 
mish, the  rifle!  A  tinkle  as  of  iron,  and  a  hiss 
accompanying  the  explosion — and  the  King  of 
the  Wilderness,  bounding  up  into  the  air  with 
his  antlers  higher  than  ever  waved  chieftain's 
plume,  falls  down  stone-dead  where  he  stood; 
for  the  blue-pill  has  gone  through  his  vitals, 
and  lightning  itself  could  hardly  have  wither- 
ed him  into  more  instantaneous  cessation  of 
life! 

He  is  an  enormous  animal.  What  antlers  ! 
Roll  him  over,  Hamish,  on  his  side!  See,  up 
to  our  breast,  nearly,  reaches  the  topmost 
branch.  He  is  what  the  hunter  of  old  called 
a  "  Stag  of  Ten."  His  eye  has  lost  the  flash 
of  freedom — the  tongue  that  browsed  the 
brushwood  is  bitten  through  by  l>he  clenched 
teeth — the  fleetness  of  his  feet  has  felt  tha« 
fatal  frost— the  wild  heart  is  hushed,  Hamish, 
— tame,  tame,  tame  ;  and  there  the  Monarch 
of  the  Mountains — the  King  of  the  Cliffs — the 
Grand  Lama  of  the  Glens— the  Sultan  of  thf 
Solitudes— the  Dey  of  the  Deserts— the  Royal 
Ranger  of  the  Woods  and  Forests — yea,  thf 
very  Prince  of  the  Air  and  Thane  of  Thundei 
— "shorn  of  all  his  beams,"  lies  motionless  as 
a  dead  Jackass  by  the  wayside,  whose  hide  was 
not  thought  worth  the  trouble  of  flaying  by  his 
owners  the  gipsies  !  "  To  this  complexion  has 
he  come  at  last" — he  who  at  dawn  had  bor. 
rowed  the  wings  of  the  wind  to  carry  him 
across  the  cataracts ! 

A  sudden  pang  shoots  across  our  heart- 
What  right  had  we  to  commit  this  murder  ] 
How,  henceforth,  shall  we  dare  to  hold  up  our 
head  among  the  lovers  of  liberty,  after  having 
thus  stolen  basely  from  behind  on  him  the 
boldest,  brightest,  and  most  beautiful  of  all  her 
sons !  We  who  for  so  many  years  have  been 
just  able  to  hobble,  and  no  more,  by  the  aid  of 
the  Crutch — who  feared  to  let  the  heather-bent 
touch  our  toe,  so  sensitive  in  its  gout— We, 
the  old  and  impotent,  all  last  winter  bed-ridden, 
and  even  now  seated  like  a  lameter  on  a 
shelty,  strapped  by  a  patent  buckle  to  a  saddle 
provided  with  a  pummel  behind  as  well  as  be- 
fore^such  an  unwieldy  and  weary  wretch  as 
We — "  fat,  and  scant  of  breath" — and  with  our 
hand  almost  perpetually  pressed  against  our 
left  side,  when  a  coughing-fit  of  asthma  brings 
back  the  stitch,  seldom  an  absentee — to  as- 
sassinate THAT  RED-DEEn,  whose  flight  on  earth 
could  accompany  the  eagle's  in  heaven ;  and 
not  only  to  assassinate  him,  but,  in  a  moral 
vein,  to  liken  his  carcass  to  that  of  a  Jackass  ! 
It  will  not  bear  further  reflection ;  so,  Hamish, 


128 


RECREATIONS   OF 


CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


out  with  your  whinger,  and  carve  him  a  dish 
fit  for  the  gods — in  a  style  worthy  of  Sir  Tris- 
trem,  Gil  Morice,  Robin  Hood,  or  Lord  Ra- 
nald. No;  let  him  lie  till  nightfall,  when  we 
shall  be  returning  from  Inveraw  with  strength 
sufficient  to  bear  him  to  the  Tent. 

But  hark,  Hamish,  to  that  sullen  croak  from 
the  cliff!  The  old  raven  of  the  cove  already 
scents  death — 

"  Sagacious  of  his  quarry  from  afar  '." 

But  -where  art  thou,  Hamish  1  Ay,  yonder  is 
Hamish,  wriggling  on  his  very  belly,  like  an 
adder,  throuj^'h  the  heather  to  windward  of  the 
croaker,  whose  nostrils,  and  eyes,  and  bill,  are 
now  all  hungrily  fascinated,  and  as  it  were 
already  fastened  into  the  very  bowels  of  the 
beast.  His  days  are  numbered.  That  sly  ser- 
pent, by  circuitous  windings  insinualing  his 
limber  length  through  among  all  obstructions, 
has  ascended  unseen  the  drooping  shoulder  of 
the  cliff,  and  now  cautiously  erects  his  crest 
within  a  hundred  yards  or  more  of  the  unsus- 
pecting savage,  still  uttering  at  intervals  his 
sullen  croak,  croak,  croak  !  Something  crum- 
bles, and  old  Sooty,  unfulding  his  htige  wings, 
lifts  himself  up  like  Satan,  about  to  sail  away 
for  a  while  into  another  glen ;  but  the  rifle 
rings  among  the  rocks — the  lead  has  broken 
his  spine — and  look  !  how  the  demon,  head 
over  heels,  goes  tumbling  down,  down,  many 
hundred  fathoms,  dashed  to  pieces  and  im- 
paled on  the  sharp-pointed  granite  !  Ere  night- 
fall the  bloody  fragments  will  be  devoured  by 
his  mate.  Nothing  now  will  disturb  the  car- 
cass of  the  deer.  No  corbies  dare  enter  the 
cove  where  the  raven  reigned;  the  hawk  pre- 
fers grouse  to  venison,  and  so  does  the  eagle, 
who,  however,  like  a  good  Catholic  as  he  is — 
this  is  Fridaj' — has  gone  out  to  sea  for  a  fish 
dinner,  which  he  devours  to  the  music  of  the 
waves  on  some  is|e-rock.  Therefore  lie  there, 
dethroned  king  !  till  thou  art  decapitated;  and 
ere  the  moon  wanes,  that  haunch  will  tower 
gloriously  on  our  Tent-table  at  the  Feast  of 
Shells. 

What  is  your  private  opinion,  O'Bronte,  of 
the  taste  oi"  Red-deer  blood  1  Has  it  not  a 
wild  twang  on  the  tongue  and  palate,  far  pre- 
ferable to  sheep's-head  ?  You  are  absolutely 
undergoing  transfiguration  into  a  deer-hound! 
With  your  fore-paws  on  the  (lank,  your  tail 
brandished  like  a  standard,  and  your  crimson 
flews  (thank  you.  Shepherd,  fi»r  that  word) 
licked  by  a  long  lambent  tongue  red  as  crimson, 
while  your  eyes  express  a  fierce  delight  never 
felt  before,  and  a  stifled  growl  disturbs  the  star 
on  your  breast — just  as  you  stand  now, 
O'Bronte,  might  Edwin  Landseer  rejoice  to 
paint  thy  picture,  for  which,  immortal  image 
of  the  wilderness,  the  Duke  of  Bedford  would 
not  scruple  to  give  a  draft  on  his  banker  for 
one  thousand  pounds ! 

Shooting  grouse  after  red-deer  is,  for  a  while 
at  first,  felt  to  be  like  writing  an  anagram  in  a 
lady's  album,  after  having  given  the  finishing 
touch  to  a  tragedy  or  an  epic  poem.  'Tis  like 
taking  to  catching  shrimps  in  the  sand  with 
one's  toes,  on  one's  return  from  Davis'  Straits 
in  a  w'-nlerthat  arrived  at  Peterhead  with  six- 
tecD  fish,  each   calculated  at  teu  ton  of  oil. 


Yet,  'lis  strange  how  the  human  soul  can 
descend,  pleasantly  at  every  note,  from  the  top 
to  the  bottom  of  passion's  and  imagination's 
gamut. 

A  Tarn — a  Tarn  !  with  but  a  small  circle  of 
unbroken  water  in  the  centre,  and  all  the  rest 
of  its  shallowness  bristling,  in  every  bay,  with 
reeds  and  rushes,  and  surrounded,  all  about 
the  mossy  flat,  with  marshes  and  quagmires! 
What  a  breeding-place — "  procreant  cradle" 
for  water  fowl !  Now  comes  thy  turn,  O'Bronte 
— for  famous  is  thy  name,  almost  as  thy  sire's, 
among  the  flappers.  Crawl  down  to  leeward, 
Hamish,  that  you  may  pepper  them — should 
they  take  to  flight  overhead  to  the  loch.  Sure- 
foot,  taste  that  greensward,  and  you  will  find 
it  sweet  and  succulent.  Dogs,  heel — heel ! — 
and  now  let  us  steal,  on  our  Crutch,  behind 
that  knoll,  and  open  a  sudden  fire  on  the  swim- 
mers, \*  ho  seem  to  think  themselves  out  of 
shot  at  the  edge  of  that  line  of  water-lilies;  but 
some  of  them  will  soon  find  themselves  mi.s- 
taken,  whirling  round  on  their  backs,  and 
vainly  cndeaviuiring  to  dive  after  their  friends 
that  disappear  beneath  the  agitated  surface 
shot-swept  into  spray.  Long  Gun  !  who  oA  to 
the  fi)refinger  of  Colonel  Hawker  has  swept 
the  night-harbour  of  Poole  all  alive  with 
widgeons,  be  true  lo  the  Intst  now  reposed  in 
thee  by  Kit  North !  And  though  these  be 
neither  geese,  nor  swans,  nor  hoopers,  yet,  send 
thy  leaden  shower  among  them  feeding  in  iheir 
play,  till  all  the  air  be  afloat  with  specks,  as  if 
at  the  shaking  of  a  feather-bed  that  had  burst 
the  licking,  and  the  tarn  covered  with  sprawl- 
ing mawMcs  and  mallards,  in  death-throes 
among  the  ducklings !  There  it  lies  on  its 
rest — like  a  telescope.  No  eye  has  discovered 
the  invention — keen  as  those  wild  eyes  are  of 
the  plowterers  on  the  shallows.  Lightning 
and  thunder!  to  which  all  the  echoes  roar. 
But  we  meanwhile  are  on  our  back  ;  for  of  all 
the  recoils  that  ever  shook  a  shoulder,  that 
one  was  the  severest — but  'twill  probably  cure 

our    rheumatism    and Well    done — nobly, 

gloriously  done,  O'lironte!  Heaven  and  earth, 
how  otter-like  he  swims!  Ha,  Hamish!  you 
have  cut  otfihe  retreat  of  that  airy  voyager — 
you  have  given  it  him  in  his  stem,  Hamish — 
and  are  reloading  for  the  flappers.  One  at  a 
time  in  your  mouth.  O'Bronte!  Put  about 
with  that  tail  for  a  nidder — and  make  for  the 
shore.  What  a  stately  creature!  as  he  comes 
issuing  from  the  shallows,  and.  bearing  the  old 
mallard  breast  high,  walks  all  dripping  alon^ 
the  greensward,  and  then  shakes  from  his 
curled  elxiny  the  flashing  spray-mist-  He 
gives  us  one  look  as  we  crown  the  knoll,  and 
then  in  again  with  a  spang  and  a  plunge  far 
into  the  tarn,  caring  no  more  for  the  reeds  than 
for  so  many  winlestraes,  and,  fast  as  a  sea- 
serpent,  is  among  the  heart  of  the  killed  and 
wounded.  In  unerring  instinct  he  always 
seizes  the  dead — and  now  a  devil's  dozen  lie 
along  the  shore.  Come  hither,  O'Bronte.  and 
caress  thy  old  master.  Ay — that  showed  a 
fine  feeling — did  that  long  shake  that  bedrizzled 
the  sunshine.  Put  thy  paws  over  our  shoul 
ders,  and  round  our  neck,  true  son  of  thy  sire 
^-oh  !  th.1t  he  were  but  alive,  to  see  and  share 
thy  achievements ;  but  indeed,  two  such  dogs, 


THE  MOORS. 


129 


living  together  in  their  prime  at  one  era,  would 
have  been  too  great  glory  for  this  sublunary 
canine  world.  Therefore  Sirius  looked  on  thy 
sire  with  an  evil  eye,  and  in  jealousy — 

"  Tantenn  aniinis  cffilestibus  irse  '." 
growled  upon  some  sinner  to  poison  the  Dog 
of  all  Dogs,  who  leapt  up  almost  to  the  ceiling 
of  the  room  where  he  slept — our  own  bed-room 
— under  the  agony  of  that  accursed  arsenic, 
gave  one  horrid  howl,  and  expired.  Methinks 
we  know  his  murderer — his  eye  falls  when  it 
meets  ours  on  the  Street  of  Princes;  and  let 
him  scowl  there  but  seldom — for  though  'tis 
but  suspicion,  this  fist,  O'Bronte,  doubles  at 
the  sight  of  the  miscreant — and  some  day,  im- 
pelled by  wrath  and  disgust,  ii  will  smash  his 
nose  flat  with  the  other  features,  till  his  face  is 
a  pancake.  Yea!  as  sure  as  Themis  holds 
her  balance  in  the  skies,  shall  the  poisoner  be 
punished  out  of  all  recognition  by  his  parents, 
and  be  disowned  by  the  Irish  Cockney  father 
that  begot  him,  and  the  Scotch  Cockney  mo- 
ther that  bf>re  him,  as  he  carries  home  a  tripc- 
like  countenance  enough  to  make  his  paramour 
the  scullmn  miscarry,  as  she  opens  the  door  to 
him  on  the  fifth  flat  of  a  common  stair.  But 
we  arc  getting  personal,  O'Bronte,  a  vice  ab- 
horrent from  our  nature. 

There  goes  our  Crutch,  Hamish,  whirling 
aloft  in  the  sky  a  rainbow  (light,  even 
like  the  tfu-pound  hammer  from  the  fling  of 
George  Scougal  at  the  St.  Ronnn's  games.  Our 
gout  is  gone — so  is  our  asthma — eke  our 
rheumati>in — and,  like  an  eagle,  we  have  re- 
newed our  youth.  There  is  hop,  step,  and 
jump,  for  you,  Hamish — we  should  not  fear, 
young  and  agile  as  you  are,  buck,  to  give  you 
a  yard.  But  now  for  the  flappers.  Pointers 
all,  stir  your  stumps  and  into  the  water.  This 
is  rich.  NVhy.  the  reeds  are  as  full  of  flappers 
as  of  frogs.  If  they  can  fly,  the  fools  don't 
know  it.  Why,  there  is  a  whole  musquito-fleet 
of  yellow  boys,  not  a  month  old.  What  a  pro- 
lific old  lady  must  she  have  been,  to  have  kept 
on  breeding  till  July.  There  she  sits,  cower- 
ing, just  on  the  ed-^e  of  the  reeds,  uncertain 
whether  to  dive  or  fly.  By  the  creak  and  cry 
of  the  cradle  of  thy  first-born,  Hamish,  spare 
the  plumage  on  her  yearning  and  quaking 
breast.  The  little  yellow  images  have  all 
melted  away,  and  are  now,  in  holy  cunning  of 
instinct,  deep  down  beneath  the  waters,  shift- 
ing for  themselves  among  the  very  mud  at  the 
bottom  of  the  reeds.  By  and  by  they  will  be 
floating  with  but  the  points  of  their  bills  above 
the  surface,  invisible  among  the  air-bells.  The 
parent  duck  has  also  disappeared ;  the  drake 
you  disposed  of,  Hamish,  as  the  coward  was 
lifting  up  his  lumbering  body,  with  fat  doup 
and  lonsi  neck  in  the  air,  to  seek  safer  skies. 
We  male  creatures — drakes,  ganders,  and  men 
alike — what  are  we,  when  afl"ection  pleads,  in 
comparison  with  females  !  In  our  passions, 
•we  are  brave,  but  these  satiated,  we  turn  upon 
our  heel  and  disappear  from  danger,  like  das- 
tards. But  doves,  and  ducks,  and  women,  are 
fearless  in  affection,  to  the  very  death.  There- 
fore have  we  all  our  days,  sleeping  or  waking, 
loved  the  sex,  virgin  and  matron,  nor  would  we 
hurt  a  hair  of  their  heads,  gray  or  golden,  for 
all  else  that  shines  beneath  the  sun. 
17 


Not  the  best  practice  this  in  the  world,  cer- 
tainly, for  pointers — and  it  may  teach  them 
b.id  habits  on  the  hill ;  but,  in  some  situations, 
all  dogs  and  all  men  are  alike,  and  cross  them 
as  you  will,  not  a  breed  but  shows  a  taint  of 
original  sin,  when  under  a  temptation  suffi- 
ciently strong  to  bring  it  out.  Ponto,  Piro,  and 
Basta,  are  now,  according  to  their  abilities,  all 
as  bad  as  O'Bronte — and  never,  to  be  sure, 
was  there  such  a  worrying  in  this  wicked 
world.  But  now  we  shall  cease  our  fire,  and 
leave  the  few  flappers  that  are  left  alive  to 
their  own  meditations.  Our  conduct  for  the 
last' hour  must  have  seemed  to  them  no  less 
unaccountable  than  alarming;  and  something 
to  quack  over  during  the  rest  of  the  season. 
Well,  we  do  not  remember  ever  to  have  seen  a 
prettier  pile  of  ducks  and  ducklings.  Hamish, 
take  census.  What  do  you  say — two  score  1 
That  beats  cockfighting.  Here's  a  hank  of 
twine,  Hamish,  tie  them  all  together  by  the 
legs,  and  hang  them,  in  two  divisions  of  equal 
weights,  over  the  crupper  of  Surefoot. 


FLIGHT  THIRD— STILL  LIFE. 

We  have  been  sufiiciently  slaughterous  for 
a  man  of  our  fine  sensibilities  and  moderate 
desires,  Hamish  ;  and  as,  somehow  or  other, 
the  scent  seems  to  be  beginning  not  to  lie  well 
— yet  the  air  cannot  be  said  to  be  close  and 
sultry  either — we  shall  let  Brown  Bess  cool 
herself  in  both  barrels — relinquish,  for  an  hour 
or  so,  our  seat  on  Shelty,  and,  by  way  of  a 
change,  pad  the  hoof  up  that  smooth  ascent, 
strangely  left  stoneless — an  avenue  positively 
looking  as  if  it  were  artificial,  as  it  stretches 
away,  with  its  beautiful  green  undulations, 
among  the  blocks  ;  for  though  no  view-hunter, 
we  are,  Hamish,  what  in  fine  language  is  call- 
ed a  devout  worshipper  of  Nature,  an  enthu- 
siast in  the  sublime  ;  and  if  Nature  do  not 
show  us  something  worth  gazing  at  when  we 
reach  yonder  altitudes,  she  must  be  a  gray  de- 
ceiver, and  we  shall  never  again  kneel  at  her 
footstool,  or  sing  a  hymn  in  her  praise. 

The  truth  is,  we  have  a  rending  headache, 
for  Bess  has  been  for  some  hours  on  the  kick, 
and  Surefoot  on  the  jog,  and  our  exertions  in 
the  pulpit  were  severe — action,  Hamish,  ac- 
tion, action,  being,  as  Demosthenes  said  some 
two  or  three  thousand  years  ago,  essential  to 
oratory  ;  and  you  observed  how  nimbly  we 
kept  changing  legs,  Hamish,  how  strenuously 
brandishing  arms,  throughout  our  discourse- 
saving  the  cunning  pauses,  thou  simpleton, 
when,  by  way  of  relief  to  our  auditors,  we 
were  as  gentle  as  sucking-doves,  and  folded  up 
our  wings  as  if  about  to  go  to  roost,  whereas 
we  were  but  meditating  a  bolder  flight — about 
to  soar,  Hamish,  into  the  empyrean.  Over  and 
above  all  that,  we  could  not  brook  Tickler's 
insolence,  who,  about  the  sma'  hours,  chal- 
lenged us,  you  know,  quech  for  quech ;  and 
though  we  gave  him  a  fair  back-fall,  yet  we 
suffered  in  the  tuilzie,  and  there  is  at  this  mo- 
ment a  throbbing  in  our  temples  that  threatens 
a  regular  brain-fever.  We  burn  for  an  air- 
bath  on  the  mountain-top.    Moreover,  we  aie 


130 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


seized  wilh  a  sudden  desire  for  solitude — to  be 
plain,  we  are  getting  sulky  ;  so  ascend,  Sure- 
foot,  Hamish,  and  be  off  with  the  pointers — 
O'Bronte  goes  with  us — north-west,  making  a 
circumbendibus  round  the  Tomhan?,  where 
Mhairhe  M'Intyre  lived  seven  years  with  the 
fairies;  and  in  a  couple  of  hours  or  so,  you 
will  find  us  under  the  Merlin  Crag. 

We  offer  to  walk  any  man  of  our  age  in 
Great  Britain.  But  what  is  our  agel  Con- 
found us  if  we  know  within  a  score  or  two. 
Yet  we  cannot  get  rid  of  the  impression  that 
we  are  under  ninety.  However,  as  we  seek 
no  advantage,  and  give  no  odds,  we  challenge 
the  octogenarians  of  the  United  Kingdom — 
fair  toe  and  heel — a  twelve-hour  match — for 
love,  fame,  and  a  legitimate  exchequer  bill  for 
a  thousand.  Why  these  calves  of  ours  would 
look  queer,  we  confess,  on  the  legs  of  a  Leith 
porter;  but  even  in  our  prime  they  were  none 
of  your  big  vulgar  calves,  but  they  handled 
like  iron — now  more  like  butter.  There  is 
still  a  spring  in  our  instep  ;  and  our  knees', 
sometimes  shaky,  are  to-day  knit  as  Pan's  and 
neat  as  Apollo's.  Poet  we  may  not  be,  but 
Pedesti'ian  we  are  ;  with  Wordsworth  we  could 
not  waUf  along  imaginative  heights,  but,  if  not 
grievously  out  of  our  reckoning,  on  the  turn- 
pike road  we  could  keep  pace  with  Captain 
Barclay  for  a  short  distance — say  from  Dun- 
dee to  Aberdeen. 

Oh  !  Gemini !  but  we  are  in  high  spirits. 
Yes — delights  there  indeed  are,  which  none 
but  pedestrians  know.  Much — all  depends  on 
the  character  of  the  wanderer;  he  must  have 
known  what  it  is  to  commune  with  his  own 
thoughts  and  feelings,  and  be  satisfied  with 
them  even  as  with  the  converse  of  a  chosen 
friend.  Not  that  he  must  always,  in  the  soli- 
tudes that  await  him,  be  in  a  meditative  mood, 
for  ideas  and  emotions  will  of  themselves  arise, 
and  he  will  only  have  to  enjoy  the  pleasures 
which  his  own  being  spontaneously  affords. 
It  would  indeed  be  a  hopeless  thing,  if  we  were 
always  to  be  on  the  stretch  for  happiness.  In- 
tellect, Imagination,  and  Feeling,  all  work  of 
their  own  free-will,  and  not  at  the  order  of  any 
taskmaster.  A  rill  soon  becomes  a  stream — a 
stream  a  river — a  river  a  loch — and  a  loch  a 
sea.  So  it  is  with  the  current  within  the  spirit. 
It  carries  us  along,  without  either  oar  or  sail, 
increasing  in  lepth,  breadth,  and  swiftness, 
yet  all  the  wnile  the  easy  work  of  our  own 
wonderful  minds.  While  we  seem  only  to  see 
or  hear,  we  arc  thinking  and  feeling  far  be- 
yond the  mere  notices  given  by  the  senses ; 
aud  years  afterwards  we  find  that  we  have 
been  laying  up  treasures,  in  our  most  heedless 
■moments,  of  imagery,  and  connecting  together 
trains  of  thought  that  arise  in  startling  beauty, 
almost  without  cause  or  any  traceable  origin. 
The  Pedestrian,  too,  must  not  only  love  his 
fiwn  society,  but  the  society  of  any  other  hu- 
•juan  beings,  if  blameless  and  not  impure, 
among  whom  his  lot  may  for  a  short  season 
1)6  cast.  He  must  rejoice  in  all  the  forms  and 
.shows  of  life,  however  simple  they  may  be, 
however  humble,  however  low;  and  be  able 
1o  find  food  for  his  thoughts  beside  the  ingle 
(if  the  loneliest  hut,  where  the  inmates  sit  with 
few  words,  and  will  rather  be  spoken  to  than 


speak  to  the  stranger.  In  such  places  he  will 
be  delighted — perhaps  surprised — to  find  in 
uncorrupted  strength  all  the  primary  elements 
of  human  character.  He  will  find  that  his 
knowledge  may  be  wider  than  theirs,  and  bet- 
ter ordered,  but  that  it  rests  on  the  same  foun- 
dation, and  comprehends  the  same  matter. 
There  will  be  no  want  of  sympathies  between 
him  and  them ;  and  what  he  knows  best,  and 
loves  most,  will  seldom  fail  to  be  that  also 
which  they  listen  to  with  greatest  interest,  and 
respecting  which  there  is  the  closest  commu- 
nion between  the  minds  of  stranger  and  host. 
He  may  know  the  course  of  the  stars  accord- 
ing to  the  revelation  of  science — they  may 
have  studied  them  only  as  simple  shepherds, 
"  whose  hearts  were  gladdened"  walking  on 
the  mountain-top.  But  they  know — as  he  does 
— who  sowed  the  stars  in  heaven,  and  that 
their  silent  courses  are  all  adjusted  by  the 
hand  of  the  Most  High. 

Oh  !  blessed,  thrice  blessed  years  of  youth  ! 
would  we  choose  to  live  over  again  all  your 
forgotten  and  unforgotten  nights  and  days ! 
Blessed,  thrice  blessed  we  call  you,  although, 
as  we  then  felt,  of\en  darkened  almost  into  in- 
sanity by  self-sown  sorrows  springing  out  of 
our  restless  soul.  No,  we  would  not  again 
face  such  troubles,  not  even  for  the  glorious 
apparitions  that  familiarly  haunted  us  in  glens 
and  forests,  on  mountains  and  on  the  great  sea. 
Bui  all,  or  nearly  all  that  did  once  so  grievous- 
ly disturb,  we  can  lay  in  the  depths  of  the  past, 
so  that  scarcely  a  ghastly  voice  is  heard,  a 
ghastly  face  beheld  ;  while  all  that  so  charmed 
of  yore,  or  nearly  all,  although  no  longer  the 
daily  companions  of  our  life,  still  survive  to  be 
recalled  at  solemn  hours,  and  with  a  "beauty 
still  more  beauteous"  to  reinvest  the  earth, 
which  neither  sin  nor  sorrow  can  rob  of  its 
enchantments.  We  can  still  travel  with  the 
solitary  mountain-stream  from  its  source  to  the 
sea,  and  see  new  visicms  at  every  vista  of  its 
winding  waters.  The  waterfall  flows  not  with 
its  own  monotonous  voice  of  a  day  or  an  hour, 
but  like  a  choral  anthem  pealing  with  the 
hymns  of  many  years.  In  the  heart  of  the 
blind  mist  on  the  mountain-ranges  we  can  now 
sit  alone,  surrounded  by  a  world  of  images, 
over  which  time  holds  no  power  but  to  conse- 
crate or  solemnize.  Solitude  we  can  deepen 
by  a  single  volition,  and  by  a  single  volition 
let  in  upon  it  the  stir  and  noise  of  the  world 
and  life.  Why,  therefore,  should  we  complain, 
or  why  lament  the  inevitable  loss  or  change  that 
time  brings  with  it  to  all  that  breathe!  Be- 
neath the  shadow  of  the  tree  we  can  j-et  re- 
pose, and  tranquillize  our  spirit  by  its  rustle, 
or  by  the  "green  light"  unchequered  by  one 
stirring  leaf.  From  sunrise  to  sunset,  we  can 
lie  below  the  old  mossy  tower,  till  the  dark- 
ness that  shuts  out  the  day,  hides  not  the  vi- 
sions that  glide  round  the  ruined  battlements. 
Cheerful  as  in  a  city  can  we  traverse  the 
houseless  moor;  and  although  not  a  ship  be 
on  the  sea,  we  can  set  sail  on  the  wings  of 
imagination,  and  when  wearied,  sink  down  on 
savage  or  serene  isle,  and  let  drop  our  anchor 
below  the  moon  and  stars. 

And  'tis  well  we   are  so   spiritual;  for  the 
senses  are  of  no  use  here,  and  we  must  draw 


THE  MOORS. 


131 


for  amusement  on  our  internal  sources.  A 
day-like  night  we  have  often  seen  about  mid- 
summer, serenest  of  all  among  the  Hebrides; 
but  a  night-like  day,  such  as  this,  ne'er  before 
fell  on  us,  and  we  might  as  well  be  in  the 
Heart  o'  Mid-Lothian.  'Tis  a  dungeon,  and  a 
dark  one — and  we  know  not  for  what  crime  we 
have  been  condemned  to  solitary  confinement. 
Were  it  mere  mist  we  should  not  mind;  but 
the  gloom  is  palpable — and  makes  resistance 
to  the  hand.  We  did  not  think  clouds  capa- 
ble of  such  condensation — the  blackness  may 
be  felt  like  velvet  on  a  hearse.  Would  that 
something  would  rustle — but  no — all  is  breath- 
lessly still,  and  not  a  wind  dares  whistle.  If 
there  be  any  thing  visible  or  audible  hereabout, 
then  are  we  stone-blind  and  stone-deaf.  We 
have  a  vision ! 

See  I  a  great  City  in  a  mist !  All  is  not 
shrouded — at  intervals  something  huge  is 
beheld  in  the  sky — what  we  know  not,  tower, 
temple,  spire,  dome,  or  a  pile  of  nameless 
structures — one  after  the  other  fading  away,  or 
sinking  and  settling  down  into  the  gloom  that 
grows  deeper  and  deeper  like  a  night.  The 
stream  of  life  seems  almost  hushed  in  the 
blind  blank — yet  you  hear  ever  and  anon,  now 
here,  now  there,  the  slow  sound  of  feet  moving 
to  their  own  dull  echoes,  and  lo !  the  Sun 

"I<ooka  Ihroiiirh  the  horizontal  misty  air, 
Shurn  of  his  beams," 

like  some  great  ghost.  Ay,  he  looks!  does  he 
not?  straight  on  your  face,  as  if  you  two  were 
the  only  beings  there — and  were  held  looking 
at  each  other  in  some  strange  communion. 
Surely  you  must  sometimes  have  felt  that 
emotion,  when  the  Luminary  seemed  no  longer 
luminous,  but  a  dull-red  brazen  orb,  sick  unto 
the  death — obscure  the  Shedder  of  Light  and 
the  Giver  of  Life  lifeless ! 

The  Sea  has  sent  a  tide-borne  wind  to  the 
City,  and  3'ou  almost  start  in  wonder  to  behold 
all  the  heavens  clear  of  clouds,  (how  beautiful 
was  the  clearing!)  and  bending  in  a  mighty 
blue  bow,  that  brightly  overarches  all  the 
brightened  habitations  of  men !  The  spires 
shoot  up  into  the  sky — the  domes  tranquilly  rest 
there — all  the  roofs  glitter  as  with  diamonds, 
all  the  white  walls  are  lustrous,  save  where, 
here  and  there,  some  loftier  range  of  buildings 
hangs  its  steadfast  shadow  o'er  square  or  street, 
magnifying  the  ciiv,  by  means  of  separate 
multitudes  of  structures,  each  town-like  in 
itself,  and  the  whole  gfithered  together  by  the 
outward  eye,  and  the  inward  imagination, 
worthy  indeed  of  the  name  of  Metropolis. 

Let  us  sit  down  on  this  bench  below  the 
shadow  of  the  Parthenon.  The  air  is  now  so 
rarefied,  that  you  can  see  not  indistinctly  the 
figure  of  a  man  on  Arthur's  Seat.  The  Calton, 
though  a  city  hill — is  as  green  as  the  Carter 
towering  over  the  Border-forest.  Not  many 
years  ago,  no  stone  edifice  was  on  his  unvio- 
lated  verdure — he  was  a  true  rural  Mount, 
where  the  lassies  bleached  their  claes,  in  a 
pure  atmosphere,  aloof  from  the  city  smoke 
almost  as  the  sides  and  summit  of  Arthur's 
Seat.  Flocks  of  sheep  might  have  grazed 
here,  had  there  been  enclosures,  and  many 
milch-cows.    But  in  their  absence  a  pastoral 


character  was  given  to  the  Hill  by  its  green 
silence,  here  and  there  broken  by  the  songs 
and  laughter  of  those  linen-bleaching  lassies, 
and  by  the  arm-in-arm  strolling  of  lovers  in 
the  morning  light  or  the  evening  shade.  Here 
married  people  use  to  walk  with  their  children, 
thinking  and  feeling  themselves  to  be  in  the 
country;  and  here  elderly  gentlemen,  like  our- 
selves, with  gold-headed  canes,  or  simple 
crutches,  mused  and  meditated  on  the  ongoings 
of  the  n6isy  lower  world.  Such  a  Hill,  so 
close  to  a  great  City,  yet  undisturbed  by  it,  and 
embued  at  all  times  with  a  feeling  of  sweeter 
peace,  because  of  the  immediate  neighbour- 
hood of  the  din  and  stir  of  which  its  green  re- 
cess high  up  in  the  blue  air  never  partook, 
seems  now,  in  the  mingled  dream  of  imagina- 
tion and  memory,  to  have  been  a  super-urban 
Paradise!  But  a  city  cannot,  ought  not  to  be, 
controlled  in  its  growth;  the  natural  beauty  of 
this  hill  has  had  its  da)^  now  it  is  broken  all 
round  with  wide  walks,  along  which  you  might 
drive  chariots  a-breast;  broad  flights  of  stone- 
stairs  lead  up  along  the  once  elastic  brae-turf; 
and  its  bosom  is  laden  with  towers  and  tem- 
ples, monuments  and  mausoleums.  Along  one 
side,  where  hanging  gardens  might  have  been, 
magnificent  as  those  of  the  old  Babylon, 
stretches  the  macadamized  Royal  Road  to 
London,  flanked  by  one  receptacle  for  the  quiet 
dead,  and  by  another  for  the  unquiet  living — a 
church-yard  and  a  prison  dying  away  in  a 
bridewell.  But,  making  amends  for  such 
hideous  deformities,  with  front  nobly  looking 
to  the  cliffs,  over  a  dell  of  dwellings  seen 
dimly  through  the  smoke-mist,  stands,  sacred 
to  the  Muses,  an  Edifice  that  might  have 
pleased  the  eye  of  Pericles!  Alas,  immedi- 
ately below,  one  that  would  have  turned  the 
brain  of  Palladio  !  Modern  Athens  indeed  ! 
Few  are  the  Grecians  among  thy  architects; 
those  who  are  not  Goths  are  Picts — and  the 
king  himself  of  the  Painted  People  designed 
Nelson's  Atonument. 

But  who  can  be  querulous  on  such  a  day? 
Weigh  all  its  defects,  designed  and  undesigned, 
and  is  not  Edinburgh  yet  a  noble  city?  Ar- 
thur's Seat !  how  like  a  lion  !  The  magnifi- 
cent range  of  Salisbury  Crags,  on  which  a 
battery  might  be  built  to  blow  the  whole  inha- 
bitation to  atoms !  Our  friend  here,  the  Cal- 
ton, with  his  mural  crowii !  Our  Castle  on 
his  Cliff!  Gloriously  hung  round  with  national 
histories  along  all  his  battlements  !  Do  they 
not  embosom  him  in  a  style  of  grandeur 
worthy,  if  such  it  be,  of  a  "  City  of  Palaces  1" 
Call  all  things  by  their  right  names,  in  heaven 
and  on  earth.  Palaces  they  are  not — nor  are 
they  built  of  marble;  but  they  are  stately 
houses,  framed  of  stone  from  Craig-Leith 
quarry,  almost  as  pale  as  the  Parian  ;  and  when 
the  sun  looks  fitfully  through  the  storm,  or  as 
now,  serenely  through  the  calm,  richer  than 
Parian  in  the  tempestuous  or  the  peaceful 
light.  Never  beheld  we  the  city  wearing  such 
a  majestic  metropolitan  aspect. 

"  Ay,  proudly  fling  thy  white  arms  to  the  sea, 
Queen  of  the  unconquer'd  North!" 

How  near  the  Frith!  Gloriously  does  ii 
supply  the  want  of  a  river.  It  is  a  river,  though 


132 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


seeming    and   sweeping   into,  the  sea;   but  a  I 
river  thai  man  may  never  bridge;  and  though 
still  now  as  the  sky,  we  wish  you  saw  it  in  its 
magnificent   madness,  when  brought  on   the 
roarings  of  the  stormful  tide  I 

"Breaks  the  long  wave  that  at  the  Pole  began,"        j 

Coast-cities  alone  are  Queens.  All  inland 
are  but  Tributaries.  Earth's  empiry  belongs 
to  the  Power  that  sees  its  shadow  in  the  sea. 
Two  separate  Cities,  not  twins — but  one  of 
ancient  and  one  of  modern  birth — how  harmo- 
niously, in  spite  of  form  and  features  charac- ' 
teristically  different,  do  they  coalesce  into  one 
Capital !  This  miracle,  methiiiks,  is  wrought 
by  the  Spirit  of  Nature  on  the  World  of  Art.  ■ 
Her  great  features  subdue  almost  into  simi-  j 
larity  a  Whole  constructed  of  such  various  | 
elements,  for  it  is  all  felt  to  be  kindred  with 
those  guardian  cliffs.  Those  eternal  heights 
hold  the  Double  City  together  in  an  amity  that 
breathes  over  both  the  same  national  look — the 
impression  of  the  same  national  soul.  In  the 
olden  time,  the  city  gathered  herself  almost 
under  the  very  wing  of  the  Castle;  for  in  her 
heroic  heart  she  ever  heard,  unalarmed  but 
■watchful,  the  alarums  of  war,  and  that  cliff, 
under  heaven,  was  on  earth  the  rock  of  her 
salvation.  But  now  the  foundation  of  that 
rock,  whence  yet  the  tranquil  burgher  hears 
the  morning  and  the  evening  bugle,  is  beau- 
tified by  gardens  that  love  its  pensive  shadow, 
for  it  tames  the  light  to  flowers  by  rude  feet 
untrodden,  and  yielding  garlands  fur  the  brows 
of  perpetual  peace.  Thence  elegance  and 
grace  arose  ;  and  while  antiquity  breathes  over 
that  wilderness  of  antique  structures  pic- 
turesquely huddled  along  the  blue  line  of  sky 
— as  Wilkie  once  finely  said,  like  the  spine  of 
some  enormous  animal;  yet  all  along  this  side 
of  that  unrivered  and  mound-divided  dell,  now 
shines  a  new  world  of  radiant  dwellings,  de- 
claring by  their  regular  but  not  monotonous 
magnificence,  that  the  same  people,  whose 
"perfervid  genius"  preserved  them  by  war  un- 
humbled  among  the  nations  in  days  of  dark- 
ness, have  now  drawn  a  strength  as  invincible, 
from  the  beautiful  arts  which  have  been  cul- 
tivated by  peace  in  the  days  of  light. 

And  is  the  spirit  of  the  inhabitation  there 
worthy  of  the  place  inhabited?  We  are  a 
Scotsman.  And  the  great  English  Moralist 
has  asked,  where  may  a  Scotsman  be  found 
who  loves  not  the  honour  or  the  glory  of  his 
country  better  than  truth  1  We  arc  that  Scots- 
man— though  for  our  country  would  we  die. 
Yet  dearer  too  than  life  is  to  us  the  honour— 
if  not  the  glory  of  our  country;  and  had  we  a 
thousarid  lives,  proudly  would  we  lay  them  all 
down  in  the  dust  rather  than  give — or  see 
given— one  single  stain 

"  Unto  the  silver  cross,  to  Scotland  dear," 

on  which  as  yet  no  stain  appears  save  those 
glorious  weather-stains,  that  have  fallen  on  its 
folds  from  the  clouds  of  war  and  the  storms  of 
battle.  Sufficient  praise  to  the  spirit  of  our 
land,  that  she  knows  how  to  love,  admire,  and 
rival- -not  in  vain — the  spirit  of  high-hearted 
and  heroic  England.  Long  as  wt-^  and  that 
other  noble  Isle 


"  Set  as  an  emerald  in  the  casing  sea," 

in  triple  union  breathe  as  one, 

"Then  come  aeainst  us  the  whole  world  in  arms, 
And  we  will  meet  thera:" 

What  is  a  people  without  pride  ?  But  let  them 
know  that  its  root  rests  on  noble  pillars;  and 
in  the  whole  range  of  strength  and  stateliness, 
what  pillars  are  there  stronger  and  statelier 
than  those  glorious  two — Genius  and  Liberty? 
Here  valour  has  fought — here  philosophy  has 
meditated — here  poetry  has  sung.  Are  not 
our  living  yet  as  brave  as  our  dead?  All 
wisdom  has  not  perished  with  the  sages  to 
whom  we  have  built  or  are  building  monu- 
mental tombs.  The  muses  yet  love  to  breathe 
the  pure  mountain-air  of  Caledon.  And  have 
we  not  amongst  us  one  myriad-minded  man, 
whose  name,  without  oflTence  to  that  high-priest 
of  nature,  or  his  devoutest  worshippers,  may 
flow  from  our  lips  even  when  they  utter  that 
of  Shaivspe.iiie  ? 

The  Queen  of  the  North  has  evaporated — 
and  we  again  have  a  glimpse  of  the  Highlands. 
But  Where's  the  Sun  ?  We  know  not  in  what 
airt  to  look  for  him,  for  who  knows  but  it  may 
now  be  afternoon  ?  It  is  almost  dark  enough 
for  evening — and  if  it  be  not  far  on  in  the  day, 
then  we  shall  have  thunder.  What  saith  our 
repeater  !  One  o'clock.  I'sually  the  brightest 
hour  of  all  the  twelve — but  any  thing  but 
bright  at  this  moment.  Can  there  be  an  eclipse 
going  on — an  earthquake  at  his  toilette — or 
merely  a  brewing  of  sionn  ?  Let  us  consult 
our  almanac.  No  eclipse  set  down  for  to-day 
— the  old  earthquake  dwells  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Coinrie,  and  has  never  been  known  to 
journey  thus  far  north — besides  he  has  for 
some  years  been  bed-ridden  ;  argal,  there  is 
about  to  be  a  storm.  What  a  fool  of  a  land- 
tortoise  were  we  to  crawl  up  to  the  top  of  a 
mountain,  when  we  might  have  taken  our 
choice  of  half-a-dozen  glens  with  cottages  in 
them  every  other  mile,  and  a  village  at  the  end 
of  each  with  a  comfortable  Change-house ! 
.\nd  up  which  of  its  sides,  pray,  was  it  that  we 
crawled  ?  Not  this  one — lor  it  is  as  steep  as 
a  church — and  we  never  in  our  life  peeped 
over  the  brink  of  an  uglier  abyss.  Ay,  Mister 
Merlin,  'tis  wise  of  you  to  be  flying  home  into 
your  crevice — put  your  head  below  your  wing, 
and  do  cease  that  cry. — Croak  !  croak  !  croak  ! 
Where  is  the  sooty  sinner  ?  We  hear  he  is 
on  the  wing — but  he  either  sees  or  smells  us, 
probably  both,  and  lhe*horrid  gurgle  in  his 
throat  is  choked  b)'  some  cloud.  Surely  that 
was  the  sughing  of  wings  !  A  Bird!  alighting 
within  fifty  yards  of  us — and,  from  his  mode 
of  folding  his  wings — an  Eagle  !  This  is  too 
much — within  fifty  yards  of  an  Eagle  on  his 
own  mountain-top.  Is  he  blind?  Age  dark- 
ens even  an  Eagle's  eyes — but  he  is  not  old, 
for  his  plumage  is  perfect — and  we  see  the 
glare  of  his  far-keekers  as  he  turns  his  head 
over  his  shoulder  and  regards  his  eyr}'  on  the 
clitT.  We  would  not  shoot  him  for  a  thousand 
a-year  for  life.  Not  old — how  do  we  know 
that?  Because  he  is  a  creature  who  is  young 
at  a  hundred — so  says  Audubon — Swainson — 
our  brother  James — and  all  shepherds.  Little  ' 
suspects  he  who  is  lying  so  near  him  with  his 


THE  MOORS. 


133 


Crutch.  Our  snufiy  suit  is  of  a  colour  with 
the  storm-stained  granite — and  if  he  wdAk  this 
way  he  will  get  a  buffet.  And  he  is  walking 
this  way — his  head  up,  and  his  tail  down — not 
hopping  like  a  filthy  raven — but  one  foot  before 
the  other — like  a  man — like  a  King.  We  do 
not  altogether  like  it — it  is  rather  alarming — 
he  may  not  be  an  Eagle  after  all — but  some- 
thing worse — "  Hurra  !  ye  Sky-scraper  !  Chris- 
topher is  upon  you  !  take  that,  and  that,  and 
that" — all  one  tumbling  scream,  there  he  goes, 
Cnitch  and  all,  over  the  edge  of  the  cliff. 
Dashed  to  death — but  impossible  for  us  to  get 
the  body.  Whew!  dashed  to  death  indeed! 
There  he  wheels,  all  on  fire,  round  the  thunder- 
gloom.  Is  it  electric  matter  in  the  atmosphere 
— or  fear  and  wrath  that  illumine  his  wings  1 

We  wish  we  were  safe  down.  There  is  no 
wind  here  }-el — none  to  speak  of;  but  there  is 
wind  enough,  to  all  appearance,  in  the  region 
towards  the  west.  The  main  body  of  the 
clouds  is  falling  back  on  the  reserve — and  ob- 
serving that  movement  the  right  wing  deploys 
— as  for  the  left  it  is  broken,  and  its  retreat 
will  soon  be  a  flight.  Fear  is  contagious — the 
whole  army  has  fallen  into  irremediable  disor- 
der— has  abandoned  its  commanding  position 
— and  in  an  hour  will  be  self-driven  into  the 
sea.     We  call  that  a  Panic. 

Glor}'  be  to  the  corps  that  covers  the  retreat. 
We  sec  now  the  cause  of  that  retrograde 
movement.  In  the  north-west  "far  off  its 
coming  shone,"  and  "in  numbers  without 
number  numberless,"  lo!  the  adverse  Host! 
Thrown  out  in  front  the  beautiful  rifle  brigade 
comes  fleetly  on,  extending  in  open  order  along 
the  vast  plain  between  the  aerial  Pine-moun- 
tains to  yon  Fire-cliffs.  The  enemy  marches 
in  masses — the  space  between  the  divisions 
now  widening  and  now  narrowing — and  as 
sure  as  we  are  alive  we  hear  the  sound  of 
trumpets.  The  routed  army  has  rallied  and 
re-appears — and,  hark,  on  the  extreme  left  a 
cannonade.  Never  before  had  the  Unholy 
Alliance  a  finer  park  of  artillery — and  now  its 
fire  opens  from  the  great  battery  in  the  centre, 
and  the  hurly-burly  is  general  far  and  wide 
over  the  whole  field  of  battle. 

But  these  lead  drops  dancing  on  our  bonnet 
tell  us  to  take  up  our  crutch  and  be  off — for 
there  it  is  sticking — and  by  and  by  the  waters 
will  be  in  flood,  and  we  may  have  to  pass  a 
night  on  the  mountain.     Down  we  go. 

We  do  not  call  this  the  same  side  of  the 
mountain  we  crawled  d^  1  There,  all  was  pur- 
ple except  what  was  green — and  we  were 
happy  to  be  a  heather-legged  body,  occasionally 
skipping  like  a  grasshopper  on  turf.  Here,  all 
rocks  save  stones.  Get  out  of  the  way,  ye 
ptarmigans.     We  hate  shingle  from  the  bottom 

of  our oh   dear!   oh  dear!   but  litis   is 

painful — sliddering  on  shingle  away  down 
what  is  any  thing  but  an  inclined  plane — feet 
foremost — accompanied  with  rattling  debris — 
at  railroad  speed — every  twenty  yards  or  so 
dislodging  a  stone  as  big  as  one's-self,  who  in- 
stantly joins  the  procession,  and  there  they  go 
hopping  and  jumping  along  with  us,  some  be- 
fore, some  at  each  side,  and,  we  shudder  to 
think  of  it  some  behind — well  somersetted 
over  our  head,  thou  Grey  Wacke — but  mercy 


on  us,  and  forgive  us  our  sins,  for  if  this  lasts, 
in  another  minute  we  are  all  at  the  bottom  of 
that  pond  of  pitch.  Take  care  of  vourself, 
O'Bronte ! 

Here  we  are — sitting  !  How  we  were  brought 
to  assume  this  rather  uneasy  posture  we  do 
not  pretend  to  say.  We  confine  ourselves  to 
the  fact.  Sitting  beside  a  Tarn.  Our  escape 
appears  to  have  been  little  less  than  miracu- 
lous, and  must  have  been  mainly  owing,  under 
Providence,  to  the  Crutch.  Who's  laughing  1 
'Tis  you,  you  old  Witch,  in  hood  and  cloak, 
crouching  on  the  cliff,  as  if  you  were  warm- 
ing your  hands  at  the  fire.  Hold  your  tongue 
— and  you  may  sit  there  to  all  eternity  if  you 
choose — )'ou  cloud-ridden  hag!  No— there 
will  be  a  blow-up  some-day — as  there  evident- 
ly has  been  here  before  now ;  but  no  more 
Geologj' — from  the  tarn,  who  is  a  'tarnatioa 
deep  'un,  runs  a  rill,  and  he  offers  to  be  our 
guide  down  to  the  Low  Country. 

Why,  this  does  not  look  like  the  same  day. 
No  gloom  here — but  a  green  serenity — not  so 
poetical  perhaps,  but,  in  a  human  light,  far 
preferable  to  a  "  brown  horror."  No  sulphure- 
ous smell — "the  air  is  balm."  No  sultriness 
— how  cool  the  circulating  medium  !  In  our 
youth,  when  we  had  wings  on  our  feet — and 
were  a  feathered  Mercury — Cherub  we  never 
were  nor  Cauliflower — by  flying,  in  our  weather- 
wisdom,  from  glen  to  glen,  we  have  made  one 
day  a  whole  week — with,  at  the  end,  a  Sabbath. 
For  all  over  the  really  mount aineoiis  region  of 
the  Highlands,  every  glen  has  its  own  inde- 
scribable kind  of  day — all  vaguely  compre- 
hended under  the  One  Day  that  may  happen 
to  be  uppermost;  and  Lowland  meteorologists, 
meeting  in  the  evening  after  a  long  absence — 
having,  perhaps,  parted  that  morning — on  com- 
paring notes  lose  their  temper,  and  have  been 
even  known  to  proceed  to  extremities  in  de- 
fence of  facts  well-established  of  a  most  con- 
tradictory and  irreconcilable  nature. 

Here  is  an  angler  fishing  with  the  fly.  In 
the  glen  beyond  that  range  he  would  have  used 
the  minnow — and  in  the  huge  hollow  behind 
our  friends  to  the  South-east,  he  might  just  as 
well  try  the  bare  hook — though  it  is  not  uni- 
versally true  that  trouts  don't  rise  when  there 
is  thunder.  Let  us  see  how  he  throws.  What 
a  cable!  Flies!  'Tufts  of  heather.  Hollo, 
you  there  ;  friend,  what  sport  ?  What  sport, 
we  say  T  No  answer;  are  you  deaf!  Dumbi 
He  flourishes  his  flail  and  is  mute.  Let  us  try 
what  a  whack  on  the  back  may  elicit.  Down 
he  flings  it,  and  staring  on  us  with  a  pair  of 
most  extraordinary  eyes,  and  a  beard  like  a 
goat,  is  off  like  a  shot.  Alas  !  we  have  fright- 
ened the  wretch  out  of  his  few  poor  wits,  and 
he  may  kill  himself  among  the  rocks.  He  is 
indeed  an  idiot — an  innocent.  We  remember 
seeing  him  near  this  very  spot  forty  years  ago 
— and  he  was  not  young  then — they  often  live 
to  extreme  old  age.  No  wonder  he  was  terri- 
fied— for  we  are  duly  sensible  of  the  outre  tout 
ensemble  we  must  have  suddenly  exhibited  in 
the  glimmer  that  visits  those  weak  and  red 
eyes — he  is  an  albino.  That  whack  was  rash, 
to  say  the  least  of  it — our  Crutch  was  too 
much  for  him  ;  but  we  hear  him  whining — and 
moaning — and,  good  God  !  there  he  is  on  his 
M 


134 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


knees  with  hands  claspt  in  supplication — "  Din- 
na  kill  me — dinnakillme — 'am  silly — 'am  silly 
— and  folk  say  'am  auld — auld — auld."  The 
harmless  creature  is  convinced  we  are  not 
going  to  kill  him — takes  from  our  hand  what  he 
calls  his  fishing  rod  and  tackle — and  laughs  like 
an  owl.  "  Ony  meat — ony  meat — ony  meat  V 
"Yes,  innocent,  there  is  some  meal  in  this 
wallet,  and  you  and  we  shall  have  ourdinner." 
"Ho !  ho  !  ho  !  ho  !  a  smelled,  a  smelled  !  a 
can  say  the  I^ord's  Prayer."  "  What's  your 
name,  my  man  ]"  "Daft  Dooggy  the  Haveril." 
"  Sit  down,  Dugald."  A  sad  mystery  all  this 
— a  drop  of  water  on  the  brain  will  do  it — so 
wise  physicians  say,  and  we  believe  it.  For 
all  that,  the  brain  is  not  the  soul.  He  takes 
the  food  with  a  kind  of  howl — and  carries  it 
away  to  some  distance,  muttering  "a  aye  eats 
by  mysel' !"  He  is  saying  grace  !  And  now 
he  is  eating  like  an  animal.  'Tis  a  saying  of 
old.  "  Their  lives  are  hidden  with  God  !" 

This  lovely  little  glen  is  almost  altogether 
new  to  us:  yet  so  congenial  its  quiet  to  the 
longings  of  our  heart,  that  all  at  once  it  is 
familiar  to  us  as  if  we  had  sojourned  here  for 
days — as  if  that  cottage  were  our  dwelling- 
place — and  we  had  retired  hither  to  await  the 
close.  Were  we  never  here  before — in  the 
olden  and  golden  time?  Those  dips  in  the 
summits  of  the  mountain  seem  to  recall  from 
oblivion  memories  of  a  morning  all  the  same 
as  this,  enjoyed  by  us  with  a  ditferent  joy, 
almost  as  if  then  we  were  a  different  being, 
joy  then  the  very  element  in  which  we  drew 
cur  breath,  satisfied  now  to  live  in  the  atmo- 
sphere of  sadness  often  thickened  with  grief 
'Tis  thus  that  there  grows  a  confusion  among 
the  past  times  in  the  dormitory — call  it  not 
the  burial-place — over-shadowed  by  sweet  or 
solemn  imagery — in  the  inland  regions;  nor 
can  we  question  the  recollections  as  they  rise 
— being  ghosts,  they  are  silent — their  coming 
and  their  going  alike  a  mystery — hut  some- 
times— as  now — they  are  happy  hauntings — 
and  age  is  almost  gladdened  into  illusion  of 
returning  youth. 

'Tis  a  lovely  little  glen  as  in  all  the  High- 
lands— yet  we  know  not  that  a  painter  would 
see  in  it  the  subject  of  a  picture — for  the 
sprinklings  of  young  trees  have  been  sown 
capriciously  by  nature,  and  there  seems  no 
reason  why  on  that  hillside,  and  not  on  any 
other,  should  survive  the  remains  of  an  old 
wood.  Among  the  multitude  of  knolls  a  few 
are  eminent  with  rocks  and  shrubs,  blit  there 
is  no  central  assemblage,  and  the  green  wilder- 
ness wantons  in  such  disorder  that  you  might 
believe  the  pools  there  to  be,  not  belonging  as 
they  are  to  the  same  running  water,  but  each 
itself  a  small  separate  lakelet  fed  by  its  own 
spring.  True,  that  above  its  homehills  there 
are  mountains — and  these  are  cliffs  on  which 
the  eagle  might  not  disdain  to  build — but  the 
range  wheels  away  in  its  grandeur  to  face  a 
loftier  region,  of  which  we  see  here  but  the 
summits  swimming  in  the  distant  clouds. 

God  bless  that  hut!  and  have  its  inmates  in 
his  holy  keeping!  But  what  Fairy  is  this 
coming  unawares  on  us  sitting  by  the  side  of 
the  most  lucid  of  little  wells  ]  Set  down  thy 
jutcher,  my  child,  and  let  us  have  a  look  at 


thy  happiness — for  though  thou  mayst  wonder 
at  our  words,  and  think  us  a  strange  old  man, 
coming  and  going,  once  and  for  ever,  to  thee 
and  thine  a  shadow  and  no  more,  yet  lean  thv 
head  towards  us  that  we  may  lay  our  hands  on 
it  and  bless  it — and  promise,  as  thou  art  grow- 
ing up  here,  sometimes  to  think  of  the  voice 
that  spake  to  thee  by  the  Birk-tree  well.  Love, 
fear,  and  serve  God,  as  the  Bible  teaches — and 
whatever  happens  thee,  quake  not,  but  put  thy 
trust  in  Heaven. 

Do  not  be  afraid  of  him,  sweet  one !  O'Bronte 
would  submit  to  be  flayed  alive  rather  than 
bite  a  child — see,  he  offers  you  a  paw — take  it 
without  trembling — nay,  he  will  let  thee  ride 
on  his  back,  my  pretty  dear — won't  thou, 
O'Bronte?  and  scamper  with  thee  up  and  down 
the  knolls  like  her  coal-black  charger  rejoicing 
to  bear  the  Fairy  Queen.  Thou  tellest  us  thy 
father  and  mother,  sisters  and  brothers,  all  are 
dead;  yet  with  a  voice  cheerful  as  well  as 
plaintive.  Smile — laugh — sing — as  thou  wert 
doing  a  minute  ago — as  thou  hast  done  for 
many  a  morning — and  shall  do  for  many  a 
morning  more  on  thy  way  to  the  well — in  the 
woods — on  the  braes — in  the  house — often  all 
by  thyself  when  the  old  people  are  out  of  doors 
not  far  off — or  when  sometimes  they  have  for 
a  whole  day  been  from  home  out  of  the  glen. 
Forget  not  our  words — and  no  evil  can  befall 
thee  that  may  not,  weak  as  thou  art,  be  borne 
— and  nothing  wicked  that  is  allowed  to  walk 
the  earth  will  ever  be  able  to  hurt  a  hair  on 
thy  head. 

My  stars!  what  a  lovely  little  animal!  A 
tame  fawn,  by  all  that  is  wild — kneeling  down 
— to  drink — no — no — at  his  lady's  feet.  The 
col  ley  catched  it — thou  sayest — on  the  edge 
of  the  Auld  wood — and  by  the  time  its  wounds 
were  cured,  it  seemed  to  have  forgot  its  mother, 
and  soon  learnt  to  follow  thee  about  to  far-off 
places  quite  out  of  sight  of  this — and  to  play 
gamesome  tricks  like  a  creature  born  among 
human  dwellings.  What !  it  dances  like  a  kid 
— ilocs  it — and  sometimes  you  put  a  garland 
of  wild  flowers  round  its  neck — and  pursue  it 
like  a  huntress,  as  it  pretends  to  be  making 
its  escape  into  the  forest? 

Look,  child,  here  is  a  pretty  green  purse  for 
you,  that  opens  and  shuts  with  a  spring — so — 
and  in  it  there  is  a  gold  coin,  called  a  sove- 
reign, and  a  crooked  sixpence.  Don't  blush — 
that  was  a  graceful  curtsey.  Keep  the  crooked 
sixpence  for  good-luck,  and  you  never  will 
want.  With  the  yellow  fellow  buy  a  Sunday 
gown  and  a  pair  of  Sunday  shoes,  and  what 
else  you  like ;  and  now — you  two,  lead  the 
way — try  a  race  to  the  door — and  old  Christo- 
pher North  will  carry  the  pitcher — balancing 
it  on  his  head — thus — ha  !  O'Bronte  galloping 
along  as  umpire.  The  Fawn  has  it,  and  by  a 
neck  has  beat  Camilla. 

We  shall  lunch  ere  we  go — and  lunch  well 
too — for  this  is  a  poor  man's,  not  a  pauper's 
hut,  and  Heaven  still  grants  his  prayer — "give 
us  this  day  our  daily  bread."  Sweeter — richer 
bannocks  of  barley-meal  never  met  the  mouth 
of  mortal  man — nor  more  delirious  butter. 
"  We  salt  it,  sir,  for  a  friend  in  Glasgow — but 
now  and  then  we  tak'  a  bite  of  the  fresh^-do 
oblige  us  a',  sir,  by  eatin',  and  you'll  maybe 


THE  MOORS. 


135 


find  the  mutton-ham  no  that  bad,  thongh  I've  ' 
kent  it  fatter — and,  as  j-ou  ha'e  a  Ions  walk 
afore  you,  excuse  me,  sir,  for  being  sae  bauld 
as  to  suggest  a  glass  o'speerit  in  your  milk,  j 
The  gudeman  is  temperate,  and  he's  been  sae  ' 
a'  his  life — but  we  keep  it  for  a  cordial — and 
that  bottle — to  be  sure  it's  a  gay  big  ane — and  j 
would  thole  replenishing — has  lasted  us  syne 
Whitsuntide  " 

So  presselh  us  to  take  care  of  number  one 
the  gudewife,  while  the  gudeman,  busy  as 
ourselves,  eyes  her  with  a  well-pleased  face, 
but  saiih  nothing,  and  the  bonnie  we  bit  lassie 
sits  on  her  stool  at  the  wunnoc  wi'  her  coggie 
ready  to  do  any  service  at  a  look,  and  supping 
little  or  nothing,  out  of  bashfulness  in  presence 
of  Christopher  North,  who  she  believes  is  a 
good,  and  thinks  may,  perhaps,  be  some  great 
man.  Our  third  bannock  has  had  the  goose- 
berry jam  laid  on  it  thick  by  "  the  gudewife's 
ain  haun'," — and  we  suspect  at  that  last  wide 
bite  we  have  smeared  the  corners  of  our  mouth 
— but  it  will  only  be  making  matters  worse  to 
attempt  licking  it  off  with  our  tongue.  Pussie  ! 
thou  hast  a  cunning  look — purring  on  our 
knees — and  though  those  glass  een  o'  thine 
are  blinking  at  the  cream  on  the  saucer — with 
which  thou  jalousest  we  intend  to  let  thee  wet 
thy  whiskers, — we  fear  thou  mak'st  no  bones 
of  the  poor  birdies  in  the  brake,  and  that  many 
an  unlucky  leveret  has  lost  its  wits  at  the 
spring  of  such  a  tiger. — Cats  are  queer  crea- 
tures, and  have  an  instinctive  liking  to  War- 
locks. 

And  these  two  old  people  have  survived  all 
their  children — sons  and  daughters!  They 
have  told  us  the  storj-  of  their  life — and  zs 
calmly  as  if  they  had  been  telling  of  the  trials 
of  some  other  pair.  Perhaps,  in  our  sympathy, 
though  we  say  but  little,  they  feel  a  strength 
that  is  not  always  theirs — perhaps  it  is  a  re- 
lief from  silent  sorrow  to  speak  to  one  who  is 
a  stranger  to  them,  and  yet,  as  they  may  think, 
a  brother  in  affliction — but  prayer  like  thanks- 
giving assures  us  that  there  is  in  this  hut  a 
Christian  composure,  far  beyond  the  need  of 
our  pity,  and  sent  from  a  region  above  the 
stars. 

There  cannot  be  a  cleaner  cottage.  Tidi- 
ness, it  is  pleasant  to  know,  has  for  a  good 
many  years  past  been  establishing  itself  in 
Scotland  amona:  the  minor  domestic  virtues. 

Once  established  it  will  never  decay;  for  it 
must  be  felt  to  brighten,  more  than  could  be 
imagined  by  our  faihers,  the  whole  aspect  of 
life.  No  need  for  any  other  household  fairy 
to  sweep  this  floor.  An  orderly  creature  we 
have  seen  she  is,  from  all  her  movements  out 
and  in  doors — though  the  guest  of  but  an 
hour.  They  have  told  us  that  they  had  known 
what  are  called  better  days — and  were  once  in 
a  thriving  way  of  business  in  a  town.  But 
they  were  born  and  bred  in  the  countn.':  and 
their  manners,  not  rustic  but  rural,  breathe  of 
its  serene  and  simple  spirit — at  once  Lowland 
and  Highland — to  us  a  pleasant  union,  not 
without  a  certain  charm  of  grace. 

What  loose  leaves  are  those  lying  on  the 
Bible?  A  few  odd  numbers  of  the  Scottish 
Chiiistiax  Herald.  We  shall  take  care,  our 
friends,  that  all  the  Numbers,  bound  in  three 


large  volumes,  shall,  ere  many  weeks  elapse, 
be  lying  for  you  at  the  Manse.  Let  us  recite 
to  you,  our  worthy  friends,  a  small  sacred 
Poem,  which  we  have  by  heart.  Christian, 
keep  your  eye  on  the  page,  and  if  we  gu 
wrong,  do  not  fear  to  set  us  right.  Can  3-ou 
say  many  psalms  and  hymns  1  But  we  need 
not  ask — for 

"  Piety  is  sweet  to  infant  minds ;" 

what  they  love  they  remember — for  how  easy 
— how  happ}- — to  get  dear  things  b}'  heart ! 
Happiest  of  all — the  things  held  holy  on  earth 
as  in  heaven — because  appertaining  here  to 
Eternal  Life. 

TO    THE    SCOTTISH    CHRISTIAN    HERALD.      BT    THE    BET. 
DUNCAS   GBAST,  a.  M.,    minister    of    FORRES. 

"Beauteous  on  our  heath-clad  mountains, 
May  our  Herald's  feet  appear ; 
Sweet,  by  silver  lakes  and  fountains, 
May  his  voice  be  to  our  ear. 
Let  the  tenants  of  our  rocks. 
Shepherds  watchine  o'er  their  flocks, 
Villace  swain  and  peasant  boy, 
Thee  salute  with  songs  of  joy  ! 

"  Christian  Herald  :  spread  the  story 
Of  Redemption's  wondrous  plan; 
'Tis  Jehovah's  brightest  elorj-, 
'Tis  his  hiehest  gift  to  man  ; 
Angels  on  their  harps  of  gold, 
Love  its  glories  to  unfold  ; 
Heralds  who  its  influence  wield. 
Make  the  waste  a  fruitfiil  field. 

"  To  the  fount  of  mercy  soaring. 
On  the  wings  of  faith  and  love  ; 
And  the  depths  of  erace  exploring, 
By  the  light  shed  from  above  ; 
Show  us  whence  life's  waters  flow. 
And  where  trees  of  blessing  grow, 
Bearing  fruit  of  heavenly  bloom, 
Breathing  Eden's  rich  perfume. 

"Love  to  God  and  man  expressing. 
In  thy  course  of  mercy  speed  ; 
Lead  to  springs  of  joy  and  blessing, 
And  with  heavenly  manna  feed 
Scotland's  children  high  and  low. 
Till  the  Lord  they  truly  know  : 
As  to  us  our  fathers  told. 
He  was  known  by  them  of  old. 

"To  the  young,  in  season  vernal, 
Jesus  in  his  grace  disclose ; 
As  the  tree  of  life  eternal, 

'Neaih  whose  shade  they  may  repose. 
Shielded  from  the  noontide  ray. 
And  from  ev'ning's  tribes  of  prey; 
And  refresh'd  wUh  fruits  of  love. 
And  with  music  from  above 

"Christian  Herald  ;  may  the  biessing 
Of  the  Highest  thee  attend, 
That,  this  chiefesi  boon  possessing. 
Thou  may'st  prove  thy  country's  friend: 
Tend  to  make  our  land  assume 
Something  of  its  former  bloom, 
When  the  dews  of  heaven  were  seen 
Sparkling  on  its  pastures  green ; 

"  When  the  voice  of  warm  devotion 
To  the  throne  of  God  arose— 
Mighty  as  the  sound  of  ocean, 
Calm  as  nature  in  repose  ; — 
Sweeter,  than  when  Araby 
Perfume  breathes  from  flow'r  and  tree. 
Rising  'bove  the  shining  sphere. 
To  Jehovah's  list'ning  ear." 

It  is  time  we  were  going — but  we  wish  to 
hear  how  thy  voice  sounds.  Christian,  when  it 
reads.  So  read  these  same  verses,  first  "  into 
yoursel',"  and  then  to  us.  They  speak  of 
mercies  above  your  comprehension,  and  ours, 
and  all  men's ;' for  they  speak  of  ihe  infinite 
goodness  and  mercy  ofGod — but  though  thou 
hast  committed  in  thy  short  life  no  sins,  or 
but  small,  towards  thy  fellow-creatures- -how 


136 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


could'st  thou?  yet  thou  knowest  we  are  all 
sinful  in  His  eyes,  and  thou  knowest  on  whose 
merits  is  the  reliance  of  our  hopes  of  Heaven. 
Thank  you,  Christian.  Three  minutes  from 
two  by  your  house-clock — she  gives  a  clear 
warning — and  three  minutes  from  two  by  our 
watch — rather  curious  this  coincidence  to  such 
a  nicety — we  must  take  up  our  Crutch  and  go. 
Thank  thee,  bonnie  wee  Christian — in  wi'  the 
bannocks  intil  our  pouch — but  we  fear  you 
must  take  us  for  a  sad  glutton. 

"Zicketty,  dicketty,  dock. 
The  mouse  ran  up  llie  clock  ; 
The  clock  struck  one, 
Down  the  mouse  ran, 
Zicketty,  dicketty,  dock." 

Come  closer.  Christian — and  let  us  put  it  to 
thine  ear.  What  a  pretty  face  of  wonder  at 
the  chime !  Good  people,  you  have  work  to 
do  in  the  hay-field — let  us  part — God  bless 
you — G(iod-by — farewell ! 

Half  an  hour  since  we  parted — we  cannot 
help  being  a  little  sad — and  fear  we  were  not 
so  kind  to  the  old  people — not  so  considerate 
as  we  ought  to  have  been — and  perhaps  though 
pleased  with  us  just  now,  they  may  say  to  one 
another  before  evening  that  we  were  too  merry 
for  our  years.  Nonsense.  We  were  all  mer- 
ry together — daft  Uncle  arnang  the  lave— for 
the  creature  came  stealing  in  and  sat  down  on 
his  own  stool  in  the  corner ;  and  what's  the 
use  of  wearing  a  long  face  at  all  times  like  a 
Methodist  minister?  A  Methodist  minister! 
Why,  John  Wesley  was  facete,  and  Whit- 
field humorous,  and  Rowland  Hill  witty — 
though  he,  we  believe,  was  not  a  Methody ; 
yet  were  their  hearts  fountains  of  tears — and 
ours  is  not  a  rock — if  it  be,  'tis  the  rock  of 
Horeb. 

Ha,  Hamish  !  Here  we  are  beneath  the 
Merlin  Crag.  What  sport?  Why,  five  brace 
is  not  so  much  amiss — and  they  are  thumpers. 
Fifteen  brace  in  all.  Ducks  and  llappers  ? 
Seven  leash.     We  are  getting  on. 

"IJut  what  are  these. 
So  vi'her'd  and  so  wild  in  their  attire 
That  l.).>k  not  like  th'  inhaltitants  o'  the  earth. 
And  yet  are  on't  1     Livu  you  ?  or  are  you  auglit 
That  nian  may  question.     Vou  seem  to  understand  me, 
By  each  at  otice  her  clioppy  ftnper  layine 
Upon  her  skinny  lips  :— you  should  lie  women, 
And  yet  your  beards  lori)id  me  to  interpret 
That  you  are  so  :" 

Shakspeare  is  not  familiar,  we  find,  among 
the  natives  of  Loch-Etive  side — else  these 
figures  would  reply, 

"  All  hail,  Macbeth  !  hail  to  thee.  Thane  of  Glammis  '." 
But  not  satisfied  with  laying  their  choppy  fin- 
gers on  their  skinny  lips,  they  now  put  them 
to  their  plooky  noses,  having  first  each  dipped 
fore  and  ihumb  in  his  mull,  and  gibber  Gaelic, 
to  us  unintelligible  as  the  quacking  of  ducks, 
when  a  Christian  auditor  has  been  prevented 
from  catching  its  meaning  by  the  gobbling  of 
turkeys. 

Witches  at  the  least,  and  about  to  prophesy 
to  us  some  pleasant  events,  that  are  to  termi- 
•  nate  disastrously  in  aftcryears.  Istherenonook 
of  earth  perfectly  solitary — but  must  natural  or 
supernatural  footsteps  haunt  the  remotest  and 
most  central  places?  But  now  we  shall  have 
our  fortunes  told  in  choice  Earse,  for  sure  these 


are  the  Children  of  the  Mist,  and  perhaps  they 
will  favour  us  with  a  running  commentary  oa 
Ossian.  Stout,  grim,  heather-legged  bodies 
they  are,  one  and  all,  and  luckily  we  are  pro- 
vided with  s/juft"  and  tobacco  sufficient  for  the 
whole  crew.  Were  they  even  ghosts  they  will 
not  refuse  a  sneeshin',  and  a  Highland  spirit 
will  look  picturesque  putTing  a  cigar! — Hark! 
we  know  them  and  their  vocation.  These  are 
the  Genii  of  the  Mountain-dew;  and  their  hid- 
den enginery,  depend  on't,  is  not  far  off,  but 
buried  in  the  bowels  of  some  brae.  See! — a 
faint  mist  dissipating  itself  over  the  heather! 
There — at  work,  shaming  the  idle  waste,  and 
in  use  and  wont  to  break  even  the  Sabbath-day, 
is  a  Still  ! 

Do  we  look  like  Excisemen  ?  The  Crutch 
has  indeed  a  suspicious  family  resemblance  to 
a  gauging-rod;  and  literary  characters,  like 
us,  may  well  be  mistaken  for  the  Superv'isor 
himself.  But  the  smuggler's  eye  knows  his 
enemy  at  a  glance,  as  the  fox  knows  a  hound; 
and  the  whispering  group  discern  at  once  that 
wc  are  of  a  nobler  breed.  That  one  fear  dis- 
pelled, Highland  hospitality  bids  us  welcome, 
even  into  the  mouth  of  the  malt-kiln,  and,  with 
a  smack  on  our  loof,  the  Chief  volunteers  to 
initiate  us  into  the  grand  mysteriesof  the  Wonn. 

The  turf-duor  is  llung  outward  on  its  lithe 
hinges,  and  already  what  a  gracious  smell! 
In  we  go,  ushered  by  unbonneted  Celts,  gen- 
tlemen in  manner  wherever  the  kilt  is  worn ! 
for  the  tartan  is  the  symbol  of  courtesy,  and 
Mac  a  good  password  all  the  world  over  be- 
tween man  and  in.an.  Lowland  eyes  are  apt 
to  water  in  the  peat-reek,  but  erelong  we  shall 
have  another  "drappie  in  our  e'c,"  and  drink 
to  the  Clans  in  the  "  unchristened  crctur." 
What  a  sad  neglect  in  our  education,  among 
all  the  ar(iuired  lingoes  extant,  to  have  over- 
looked the  Gaelic  !  Yet  nobody  who  has  ever 
heard  P.  R.  preach  an  Earse  Sermon,  need 
despair  of  discoursing  in  that  tongue  after  an 
hour's  practice;  so  let  us  forget,  if  possible, 
every  word  of  English,  and  the  language  now 
needed  will  rise  up  in  its  place. 

And  these  figures  in  men's  coats  and  wo- 
men's petticoats  are  females  ?  Wc  are  witling 
to  believe  it  in  spite  of  their  beards.  One  of 
them  absolutely  suckling  a  child !  Thank  you, 
my  dear  sir,  but  wc  cannot  swallow  the  con- 
tents of  that  quech.  Yet,  let  us  try. — A  little 
too  warm,  and  rather  harsh ;  but  meat  and 
drink  to  a  man  of  age.  That  seems  to  be 
goat-milk  cheese,  and  l\^  scones  are  barley ; 
and  they  and  the  speerit  will  wash  one  another 
down  in  an  amicable  plea,  nor  quarrel  at  close 
quarters.  Honey  too — heather-honey  of  this 
blessed  year's  produce.  Hecate's  forefinger 
mixes  it  in  a  <iuech  with  mountain-dew — and 
that  is  Athole-hrose? 

There  cannot  be  the  least  doubt  in  the  world 
that  the  Hamiltonian  system  of  teaching  lan- 
guages is  one  of  the  best  ever  invented.  It  will 
enable  any  pupil  of  common-run  powers  ofatien- 
tion  to  read  any  part  of  the  New  Testament  in 
Greek  in  soiue  twenty  lessons  of  an  hour  each. 
But  what  is  that  to  the  principle  of  the  worm  1 
Half  a  blessed  hour  has  not  elapsed  since  we 
entered  into  the  door  of  this  hill-house,  and  we 
offer  twenty  to  one  that  we  read  Ossian,  ad 


THE  MOORS. 


137 


aperturam  lihri,  in  the  original  Gaelic.  We  feel 
as  if  we  could  translate  the  works  of  Jeremy 
Bentham  into  that  tongue — ay,  even  Francis 
Maximus  Macnab's  Theory  of  the  Universe. 
We  guaranty  ourselves  to  do  both,  this  iden- 
tical night  before  we  go  to  sleep,  and  if  the 
printers  are  busy  during  the  intermediate 
hours,  to  correct  the  press  in  the  morning. 
Why,  there  are  not  above  five  thousand  roots — 
but  we  are  getting  a  little  gizzy — into  a  slate 
of  civilation  in  the  wilderness — and,  gentlemen, 
let  us  drink — in  solemn  silence — the  "  Memory 
of  Fingal." 

O  St.  Cecilia!  we  did  not  lay  our  account 
with  a  bagpipe  !  What  is  the  competition  of 
pipers  in  the  Edinburgh  Theatre,  small  as  it  is, 
to  this  damnable  drone  in  an  earth-cell,  eight 
feet  by  six !  Yet  while  the  drums  of  our  ears 
are  continuing  to  split  like  old  parchment  title- 
deeds  to  lands  nowhere  existing,  and  all  our 
animal  economy,  from  finger  to  toe,  is  one 
agonizing  dirl,  ^olus  himself  sits  as  proud 
as  Lucifer  in  Pandemonium ;  and  as  the  old 
soldiers  keep  tending  the  Worm  in  the  reek  as 
if  all  were  silence,  the  male-looking  females, 
and  especially  the  he-she  with  the  imp  at  her 
treast,  nod,  and  smirk,  and  smile,  and  snap 
their  fingers,  in  a  challenge  to  a  straspey — 
and,  by  all  that  is  horrible,  a  red  hairy  arm  is 
round  our  neck,  and  we  are  half-choked  with 
the  fumes  of  whisky-kisses.  An  hour  ago,  we 
were  dreaming  of  Malvina!  and  here  she  is 
with  a  vengeance,  while  we  in  the  character 
of  Oscar  are  embraced  till  almost  all  the  Low- 
land breath  in  our  body  expires. 

And  this  is  still-life"! 

Extraordinary  it  is,  that,  go  where  we  will, 
we  are  in  a  wonderfully  short  time  discovered 
to  be  Christopher  North.  A  few  years  ago, 
the  instant  we  found  our  feet  in  a  mine  in 
Cornwall,  after  a  descent  of  about  one-third 
the  bored  earth's  diameter,  we  were  saluted  by 
name  by  a  grim  Monops  who  had  not  seen  the 
apper  regions  for  years,  preferring  the  interior 
of  the  planet;  and  forthwith,  "Christopher 
North,  Christopher  North,"  reverberated  along 
the  galleries,  while  the  gnomes  came  flocking 
in  all  directions,  with  safety-lamps,  to  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  famous  Editor.  On  another 
occasion,  we  remember  when  coasting  the 
south  of  Ireland  in  our  schooner,  falling  in 
with  a  boat  like  a  cockle-shell,  well  out  of 
the  Bay  of  Bantry,  and  of  the  three  half-naked 
Paddies  that  were  ensnaring  the  finny  race, 
two  smoked  us  at  the  helm,  and  bawled  out, 
*'  Kilty  go  bragh !"  Were  we  to  go  up  in  a 
balloon,  and  by  any  accident  descend  in  the 
interior  of  Africa,  we  have  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  Sultan  Belloo  would  know  us  in  a 
jiffy,  having  heard  our  person  so  frequently 
described  by  Major  Denham  and  Captain  Clap- 
perton.  So  we  are  known,  it  seems,  in  the 
Still — by  the  men  of  the  Worm  ?  Yes — the 
principal  proprietor  in  the  concern  is  a  school- 
master over  about  Loch-Earn-Head — a  man  of 
no  mean  literary  abilities,  and  an  occasional 
contributor  to  the  Magazine.  He  visits  The 
Shop  in  breeches — but  now  mounts  the  kilt — 
and  astonishes  us  by  the  versatility  of  his  ta- 
lents. In  one  of  the  most  active  working  bees 
we  recognise  a  caddy,  formerly  in  Auld  Reeky 
18 


ycleped  "  The  Despatch,"  now  retired  to  the 
Braes  of  Balquhidder,  and  breathing  strongly 
the  spirit  of  his  youth.  With  that  heather- 
houghed  gentleman,  fiery-lressed  as  the  God  of 
Day,  we  were,  for  the  quarter  of  a  century  that 
we  held  a  large  grazing  farm,  in  the  annual 
practice  of  drinking  a  gill  at  the  Falkirk  Tryst; 
and — wonderful,  indeed,  to  think  how  old 
friends  meet,  we  were  present  at  the  amputa- 
tion of  the  right  leg  of  that  timber-toed  hero 
with  the  bushy  whiskers — in  the  Hospital 
of  Rosetta — having  accompanied  Sir  David 
Baird's  splendid  Indian  army  to  Egypt. 

Shying,  for  the  present,  the  question  in  Po- 
litical Economy,  and  viewing  the  subject  in  a 
moral,  social,  and  poetical  light,  what,  pray,  is 
the  true  influence  of  The  Still?  It  makes 
people  idle.  Idle]  What  species  of  idleness 
is  that  which  consists  in  being  up  night  and 
day — traversing  moors  and  mountains  in  all 
weathers — constantly  contriving  the  most  skil- 
ful expedients  for  misleading  the  Excise,  and 
which,  on  some  disastrous  day,  when  dragoons 
suddenly  shake  the  desert — when  all  is  lost 
except  honour — hundreds  of  gallons  of  wash 
(alas!  alas!  a-day!)  wickedly  wasted  among 
the  heather  roots,  and  the  whole  beautiful  Ap- 
paratus lying  battered  and  spiritless  in  the  sun 
beneath  the  accursed  blows  o^  the  Pagans — re- 
turns, after  a  few  weeks  set  apart  to  natural 
grief  and  indignation,  with  unabated  energy,  to 
the  selfsame  work,  even  within  view  of  the 
former  ruins,  and  pouring  out  a  libation  of  the 
first  amalgamated  hotness  that  deserves  the 
name  of  speerit,  devotes  the  whole  Board  of 
Excise  to  the  Infernal  Gods  ? 

The  argument  of  idleness  has  not  a  leg  to 
stand  on,  and  falls  at  once  to  the  ground.  But 
the  Still  makes  men  dishonest.  We  grant  that 
there  is  a  certain  degree  of  dishonesty  in  cheat- 
ing the  Excise;  and  we  shall  allow  yourself 
to  hx  it,  who  give  as  fine  a  caulker  from  the 
sma'  still,  as  any  moral  writer  on  Honesty 
with  whom  we  have  the  pleasure  occasionally 
to  take  a  family  dinner.  But  the  poor  fellows 
either  grow  or  purchase  their  own  malt.  They 
do  not  steal  it ;  and  many  is  the  silent  bene- 
diction that  we  have  breathed  over  a  bit  patch 
of  barley,  far  up  on  its  stoney  soil  among  the 
hills,  bethinking  that  it  would  yield  up  its  pre- 
cious spirit  unexcised  !  Neither  do  they  charge 
for  it  any  very  extravagant  price — for  what  is 
twelve,  fourteen,  twenty  shillings  a  gallon  for 
such  drink  divine  as  is  now  steaming  before 
us  in  that  celestial  caldron  ! 

Having  thus  got  rid  of  the  charge  of  idle- 
ness and  dishonesty,  nothing  more  needs  to  be 
said  on  the  Moral  Influence  of  the  Still;  and 
we  come  now,  in  the  second  place,  to  consider 
it  in  a  Social  Light.  The  biggest  bigot  will 
not  dare  to  deny,  that  without  whisky  the 
Highlands  of  Scotland  would  be  uninhabitable 
And  if  all  the  population  were  gone,  or  extinct, 
where  then  would  be  your  social  life  ]  Smug- 
glers are  seldom  drunkards ;  neither  are  they 
men  of  boisterous  manners  or  savage  disposi- 
tions. In  general,  they  are  grave,  sedate, 
peaceable  characters,  not  unlike  elders  of  the 
kirk.  Even  Excisemen  admit  them,  except  on 
rare  occasions,  when  human  patience  is  ex 
hausted,  to  be  merciful.  Four  pleasanter  men 
u  2 


13S 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


do  not  now  exist  in  the  bosom  of  the  earth, 
than  the  friends  with  whom  we  are  now  on  the 
hobnob.  Stolen  waters  are  sweet — a  profound 
and  beautiful  reflection — and  no  doubt  origi- 
nally made  by  some  peripatetic  philosopher  at 
a  Still.  The  very  soul  of  the  strong  drink  eva- 
porates with  the  touch  of  the  ganger's  wand. 
An  evil  day  would  it  indeed  be  for  Scotland, 
that  should  witness  the  extinguishment  of  all 
her  free  and  unlicensed  mountain  stills!  The 
charm  of  Highland  hospitality  would  be  wan 
and  withered,  and  the  dock  nn  dorms,  instead 
of  a  blessing,  would  sound  like  a  ban. 

We  have  said  that  smugglers  are  never 
drunlvards,  not  forgetting  that  general  rules  are 
proved  by  exceptions;  nay,  we  go  farther,  and 
declare  that  the  Highlanders  are  the  soberest 
people  in  Europe.  Whisky  is  to  them  a  cor- 
dial, a  medicine,  a  life-preserver.  Chief  of  the 
umbrella  and  wraprascal !  were  you  ever  in 
the  Highlands  ?  We  shall  produce  a  single  day 
from  any  of  the  fifty-two  weeks  of  the  year  that 
will  outargue  you  on  the  present  subject,  in 
half-an-hour.  What  sound  is  that?  The  rush- 
ing of  rain  from  heaven,  and  the  sudden  out- 
cry of  a  thousand  waterfalls.  Look  through  a 
chink  in  the  bothy,  and  far  as  you  can  see  for 
the  mists,  the  heath-covered  desert  is  steaming 
like  the  smoke  of  a  smouldering  fire.  Winds 
biting  as  winter  come  sweeping  on  their  invi- 
sible chariots  armed  with  scythes,  down  every 
glen,  and  scatter  far  and  wide  over  the  moun- 
tains the  spray  of  the  raging  lochs.  Now  you 
have  a  taste  of  the  summer  cold,  more  dan- 
gerous far  than  that  of  Yule,  for  it  often  strikes 
"  aitches"  into  the  unprepared  bones,  and  con- 
geals the  blood  of  the  shelterless  shepherd  on 
the  hill.  But  one  glorious  gurgle  of  the  speerit 
down  the  throat  of  a  storm-stayed  man!  and 
bold  as  a  rainbow  he  faces  the  reappearing 
sun,  and  feels  assured  (though  there  he  may 
be  mistaken)  of  dying  at  a  good  old  age. 

Then  think,  oh  think,  how  miserably  poor 
are  most  of  those  men  who  have  fought  our 
battles,  and  so  often  reddened  their  bayonets  in 
defence  of  our  liberties  and  our  laws!  Would 
you  grudge  them  a  little  whisky  ?  And,  de- 
pend upon  it,  a  little  is  the  most,  taking  one 
day  of  the  year  with  another,  that  they  imbibe. 
You  figure  to  yourself  two  hundred  thousand 
Highlanders,  taking  snuff,  and  chewing  tobac- 
co, and  drinking  whisky,  all  year  long.  Why, 
one  pound  of  snuff,  two  of  tobacco,  and  two 
gallons  of  whisky,  would  be  beyond  the  mark 
of  the  yearly  allowance  of  every  grown-up 
man!  Thousands  never  taste  such  luxuries 
at  all — meal  and  water,  potatoes  and  salt,  their 
only  food.  The  animal  food,  sir,  and  the  fer- 
mented liquors  of  various  kinds.  Foreign  and 
British,  which  to  our  certain  knowledge  3-ou 
have  swallowed  within  the  last  twelve  months, 
would  have  sufficed  for  fifty  families  in  our 
abstemious  region  of  mist  and  snow.  We 
have  known  you  drink  a  bottle  of  champagne, 
a  bottle  of  port,  and  two  bottles  of  claret,  fre- 
quently at  a  sitting,  equal,  in  prime  cost,  to 
three  gallons  of  the  best  Glenlivet!  And  Yoti 
(who,  by  the  way,  are  an  English  clergyman, 
a  circumstance  we  had  entirely  forgotten,  and 
have  published  a  Discourse  against  Drunken- 
Dess,  dedicated  to  a  Bishop)   pour  forth  the 


Lamentations  of  Jeremiah  over  the  sinful  mul- 
titude of  Small  Stills  !  Hypocrisy  I  h3'pocrisy ! 
where  shalt  thou  hide  thy  many-coloured  sides  1 

Whisky  is  found  by  experience  to  be,  on 
the  whole,  a  blessing  in  so  mistj*  and  moun- 
tainous a  country.  It  destroys  disease  and  ba- 
nishes death;  without  some  such  stimulant 
the  people  would  die  of  cold.  You  will  see  a 
fine  old  Gael,  of  ninety  or  a  hundred,  turn  up 
his  little  finger  to  a  caulker  with  an  air  of  pa- 
triarchal solemnity  altogether  scriptural;  his 
great-grandchildren  eyeing  him  with  the  most 
respectful  affection,  and  the  youngest  of  them 
toddling  across  the  floor,  to  take  the  quechfrora 
his  huge,  withered,  and  hairy  hand,  which  he 
lays  on  the  amiable  Joseph's  sleek  craniology, 
with  a  blessing  heartier  through  the  Glenlivet, 
and  with  all  the  earnestness  of  religion.  There 
is  no  disgrace  in  getting  drunk — in  the  High- 
lands— not  even  if  you  are  of  the  above  stand- 
ing— for  where  the  people  are  so  poor,  such  a 
state  is  but  of  rare  occurrence;  while  it  is  felt 
all  over  the  land  of  sleet  and  snow,  that  a  "  drap 
o'  the  creatur"  is  a  very  necessary  of  life,  and 
that  but  for  its  "dew"  the  mountains  would  be 
uninhabitable.  At  fairs,  and  funerals,  and 
marriages,  and  suchlike  merry  meetings,  so- 
briety is  sent  to  look  after  the  sheep  ;  but,  ex- 
cept on  charitable  occasions  of  that  kind,  so- 
briety stays  at  home  among  the  peat-reek,  and 
is  contented  M'ith  crowdy.  Who  that  ever 
stooped  his  head  beneath  a  Highland  hut  would 
grudge  a  few  gallons  of  Glenlivet  to  its  poor 
but  unrepining  inmates  1  The  seldomer  they 
get  drunk  the  better — and  it  is  but  seldom  they 
do  so;  but  let  the  rich  man — the  monied  mo- 
ralist, who  bewails  and  begrudges  the  Gael  a 
modicum  of  the  liquor  of  life,  remember  the 
doom  of  a  certain  Dives,  who,  in  a  certain  place 
that  shall  now  be  nameless,  cried,  but  cried  ia 
vain  for  a  drop  of  water.  Lord  bless  the  High- 
landers, say  we,  for  the  most  harmless,  hospi- 
table, peaceable,  brave  people  that  ever  de- 
spised breeches,  blue  pibrochs,  took  invincible 
standards,  and  believed  in  the  authenticity  of 
Ossian's  poems.  In  that  pure  and  lofiy  regiou 
ignorance  is  not,  as  elsewhere,  the  mother  of 
vice — penury  cannot  repress  the  noble  rage  of 
the  mountaineer  as  "  he  sings  aloud  old  songs 
that  are  the  music  of  the  heart;"  while  super- 
stition herself  has  an  elevating  influence,  and 
will  be  suffered,  even  by  religion,  to  show  her 
shadowy  shape  and  mutter  her  wild  voice 
through  the  gloom  that  lies  on  the  heads  of  the 
remote  glens,  and  among  the  thousand  caves 
of  echo  in  her  iron-bound  coasts  dashed  on  for 
ever — night  and  day — summer  and  winter — 
by  those  sleepless  seas,  who  have  no  sooner 
laid  their  heads  on  the  pillow  than  up  they 
start  with  a  howl  that  cleaves  the  Orcades, 
and  away  olf  in  search  of  shipwrecks  round 
the  corner  of  Cape  Wrath. 

In  the  third  place,  what  shall  we  say  of  the 
poetical  influence  of  Stills?  What  more 
poetical  life  can  there  be  than  that  of  the  men 
with  whom  we  are  now  quafiing  the  barley- 
bree?  They  live  with  the  moon  and  stars. 
All  the  night  winds  are  their  familiars.  If 
there  be  such  things  as  ghosts,  and  fairies,  and 
apparitions — and  that  there  are,  no  man  who 
has  travelled  much  by  himself  after  sunset  will 


THE  MOORS. 


139 


deny,  except  from  the  mere  love  of  contradic-   attack  your  corpse  from  the  worm-holes  of  the 
tion — they  see  them  ;  or  when  invisible,  which  ,  earth.     Corbies,  ravens,  hawks,  eagles,  all  the 


they  generally  are,  hear  them — here — there — 
ever}'where — in  sk}',  forest,  cave,  or  hollow- 
sounding  world  immediately  beneath  their 
feet.  Many  poets  walk  these  wilds  ;  nor  do 
their  songs  perish.  They  publish  not  Avith 
Blackwood  or  with  Murray — but  for  centuries 
on  centuries,  such  songs  are  the  preservers, 
often  the  sources,  of  the  oral  traditions  that  go 
glimmering  and  gathering  down  the  stream  of 
years.  Native  are  they  to  the  mountains  as 
the  blooming  heather,  nor  shall  they  ever  cease 
to  invest  them  with  the  light  of  poetry — in  defi- 
ance of  large  farms,  Methodist  preachers,  and 
the  Caledonian  Canal. 

People  are  proud  of  talking  of  solitude.  It 
redounds,  they  opine,  to  the  honour  of  their 
great-mindedness  to  be  thought  capable  of 
living,  for  an  hour  or  two,  by  themselves,  at  a 
considerable  distance  from  knots  or  skeins  of 
their  fellow-creatures.  Byron,  again,  thought 
he  showed  his  superiority,  by  swearing  as  so- 
lemnly as  a  man  can  do  in  the  Spenserian 
stanza,  that 

"To  sit  alone,  and  muse  o'er  flood  and  fell," 
has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  solitude — and 
that,  if  you  wish  to  know  and  feel  what  soli- 
tude really  is,  3'ou  must  go  to  Almack's. 

"This— this  is  solitude — this  is  to  be  alone  !" 


His  Lordship's  opinions  were  often  peculiar — 
but  the  passage  has  been  much  admired ; 
therefore  we  are  willing  to  believe  that  the 
Great  Desert  is,  in  point  of  loneliness,  unable 
to  stand  a  philosophical,  much  less  a  poetical 
comparison,  with  a  well-frequented  fancy-ball. 
But  is  the  statement  not  borne  out  by  facts? 
Zoology  is  on  its  side — more  especially  two  of 
its  most  interesting  branches,  Entomology  and 
Ornithology. 

Go  to  a  desert  and  clap  your  back  against  a 
cliff.  Do  you  think  yourself  alone?  What  a 
ninny!  Your  great  clumsy  splay  feet  are 
bruising  to  death  a  batch  of  beetles.  See  that 
spider  whom  you  hav^e  widowed,  running  up 
and  down  your  elegant  leg,  in  distraction  and 
despair,  bewailing  the  loss  of  a  husband  who, 
however  savage  to  the  ephemerals,  had  al- 
ways smiled  sweetly  upon  her.  Meanwhile, 
your  shoulders  have  crushed  a  colony  of  small 
red  ants  settled  in  a  moss  city  beautifully 
roofed  with  lichens — and  that  accounts  for  the 
sharp  tickling  behind  your  ear,  which  you 
keep  scratching,  no  Solomon,  in  ignorance  of 
the  cause  of  that  effect.  Should  you  sit  down 
—we  must  beg  to  draw  a  veil  over  your  hur- 
dles, which  at  the  moment  extinguish  a  fear- 
ful amount  of  animal  life — creation  may  be 
said  to  groan  under  them  ;  and,  insect  as  you 
are  yourself,  3'ou  are  defrauding  millions  of 
insects  of  their  little  day.  All  the  while  you 
are  supposing  yourself  alone!  Now  are  you 
not,  as  we  hinted,  a  prodigious  ninny!  But 
the  whole  wilderness — as  you  choose  to  call  it 
— is  crawling  with  various  life.  London,  with 
its  million  and  a  half  of  inhabitants — includ- 
ing of  course  its  suburbs — is,  compared  with 
it,  an  empty  joke.  Die — and  you  will  soon  be 
picked  to  the    bones.     The    air   swarms    with 


feathered  furies  of  beak  and  bill,  will  come 
flying  ere  sunset  to  anticipate  the  maggots,  and 
carry  your  remains — if  you  will  allow  us  to 
call  them  so — over  the  whole  of  Argyleshire  in 
!  many  living  sepulchres.  We  confess  ourselves 
unable  to  see  the  solitude  of  this — and  begin 
to  agree  with  Byron,  that  a  man  is  less 
crowded  at  a  masquerade. 

But  the  same  subject  may  be  illustrated  less 
tragically,  and  even  with  some  slight  comic 
effect.  A  man  among  mountains  is  often  sur- 
rounded on  all  sides  with  mice  and  moles. 
What  cozy  nests  do  the  former  construct  at 
the  roots  of  heather,  among  tufts  of  grass  iu 
the  rushes,  and  the  moss  on  the  greensward ! 
As  for  the  latter,  though  you  think  you  know 
a  mountain  from  a  molehill,  you  are  much 
mistaken;  for  what  is  a  mountain,  in  many 
cases,  but  a  collection  of  molehills — and  of 
fairy  knolls? — which  again  introduce  a  new 
element  into  the  composition,  and  show,  iu 
still  more  glaring  colours,  your  absurdity  in 
supposing  yourself  to  be  in  solitude.  The 
"  Silent  People"  are  around  you  at  every  step. 
You  may  not  see  them — for  they  are  dressed 
in  invisible  green  ;  but  they  see  you,  and  that 
unaccountable  whispering  and  buzzing  sound 
one  often  hears  in  what  we  call  the  wilderness, 
what  is  it,  or  what  can  it  be,  but  the  fairies 
making  merry  at  your  expense,  pointing  out 
to  each  other  the  extreme  silliness  of  your 
meditative  countenance,  and  laughing  like  to 
split  at  your  fond  conceit  of  being  alone  among 
a  multitude  of  creatures  far  wiser  than  your 
self. 

But  should  all  this  fail  to  convince  you,  thai 
you  are  never  less  alone  than  when  you  think 
yourself  alone,  and  that  a  man  never  knows 
what  it  is  to  be  in  the  very  heart  of  life  till  he 
leaves  London,  and  takes  a  walk  in  Glen- 
Etive — suppose  yourself  to  have  been  leaning 
with  your  back  against  that  knoll,  dreaming 
of  the  far-off  race  of  men,  when  all  at  once  the 
support  gives  way  inwards,  and  you  tumble 
head  over  heels  in  among  a  snug  coterie  of 
kilted  Celts,  in  the  very  act  of  creating  Glen- 
livet  in  a  great  warlock's  caldron,  seething  to 
the  top  willi  the  Spirit  of  Life  ! 

Such  fancies  as  these,  among  many  others, 
were  with  us  in  the  Still.  But  a  glimmering 
and  a  humming  and  a  dizzy  bewilderment 
hangs  over  that  time  and  place,  finally  dying 
away  into  oblivion.  Hire  are  we  sitting  in  a 
glade  of  a  birch-wood  in  what  must  be  Gleno 
— some  miles  from  the  Still.  Hamish  asleep, 
as  usual,  whenever  he  lies  down,  and  all  the 
dogs  yowffing  in  dreams,  and  Surefoot  stand- 
ing with  his  long  beard  above  ours,  almost  the 
same  in  longitude.  We  have  been  more,  we 
suspect,  than  half-seas  over,  and  are  now 
lying  on  the  shore  of  sobriety,  almost  a  wreck. 
The  truth  is,  that  the  new  spirit  is  even  more 
dangerous  than  the  new  light.  Both  at  first 
dazzle,  then  obfuscate,  and  lastly  darken  into 
temporary  death.  There  is,  we  fear,  but  one 
word  of  one  syllable  in  the  English  language 
that  could  fully  express  our  late  condition. 
Let  our  readers  solve  the  enigma.    Oh  !  those 


sharkers — and  an  insurrection  of  radicals  will   quechs  !     By 


140 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


"  What  drups,  what  spells, 
What  conjurations,  and  what  mighty  magic," 

was  Christopher  overthrown  !  A  strange  con- 
fusion of  sexes,  as  of  men  in  petticoats  and 
women  in  breeches — gowns  transmogrified 
into  jackets — caps  into  bonnets — and  thick 
naked  hairy  legs  into  slim  ankles  decent  in 
hose — all  somewhere  whirling  and  dancing  by, 
dim  and  obscure,  to  the  sound  of  something 
,jroaniiig  and  yelling,  sometimes  inarticulate- 
ly, as  if  it  came  from  something  instrumental, 
and  then  mixed  up  with  a  wild  gibberish,  as 
if  shrieking,  somehow  or  other,  from  living 
lips,  human  and  brute — for  a  dream  of  yowl- 
ing dogs  is  over  all — utterly  confounds  us  as 
we  strive  to  muster  in  recollection  the  few  last 
hours  that  have  passed  tumultuously  through 
our  brain — and  then  a  wide  black  moor,  some- 
times covered  with  day,  sometimes  with  night, 
stretches  around  us,  hemmed  in  on  all  sides  by 
the  tops  of  mountains,  seeming  to  reel  in  the 
sky.  Frequent  flashes  of  fire,  and  a  whirring 
as  of  the  wings  of  birds — but  sound  and  sight 
alike  uncertain — break  again  upon  our  dream. 
Let  us  not  mince  the  matter — we  can  aflbrd 
the  confession — we  have  been  overtaken  by 
liquor — sadly  intoxicated — out  with  it  at  once  ! 
Frown  not,  fairest  of  all  sweet — for  we  lay  our 
calamity,  not  to  the  charge  of  the  Glenlivet 
circling  in  countless  quechs,  but  at  the  door 
of  that  inveterate  enemy  to  sobriety — the  Fresh 
Air. 

But  now  we  are  as  sober  as  a  judge.  Pity 
our  misfortune — rather  than  forgive  our  sin. 
We  entered  that  Still  in  a  State  of  innocence 
before  the  Fall.  Where  we  fell,  we  know  not 
— in  divers  ways  and  sundry  places — between 
that  magic  cell  on  the  breast  of  Benachochie, 
and  this  glade  in  Gleno.     But, 

"There  are  worse   tilings  in  life  than  a  fall  among 
heather." 

Surefoot,  we  suppose,  kept  himself  tolerably 
sober — and  O'Bronte,  at  each  successive  cloit, 
must  have  assisted  us  to  remount — for  Hamish, 
from  his  style  of  sleeping,  must  have  been  as 
bad  as  his  master;  and,  after  all,  it  is  wonder- 
ful to  think  how  we  got  here-over  hags  and  b^^^^.^  g^^^  „^,^^  ^^^e  loaded  with  ball-for 
mosses,  and  marshes  and  quagmires,  like  those 
in  which  "armies  whole  have  sunk."   But  the 


FLIGHT    FOURTH— DOWN  RIVER    AND 
UP  LOCH. 

Let  us  inspect   the    state  of  Brown  Bess. 
Right  barrel  empty — left  barrel — what  is  the 
meaning  of  this] — crammed  to  the  muzzle! 
Ay,  that  comes  on  visiting  Stills.     We  have 
been  snapping  away  at  the  coveys  and  single 
birds  all  over  the  moor,  without  so  much  as  a 
plufT,   with   the    right-hand    cock — and   then, 
imagining  that  we  had  fired,  have  kept  loading 
away  at  the  bore  to  the  left,  till,  see  !  the  ram- 
rod absolutely  stands  upright  in  the  air,  with 
only  about  three  inches  hidden  in  the  hollow! 
What  a  narrow — a  miraculous  escape  has  the 
world  had  of  losing  Christopher  North  !     Had 
he  drawn  that  trigger  instead  of  this,  Brown 
Bess  would  have  burst  to  a  moral  certainty, 
and  blown  the  old  gentleman  piecemeal  over 
the  heather.     "  In  the  midst  of  life  we  are  in 
death  I"     Could  we  but  know  one  in  a  hun- 
dred of  the  close  approachings  of  the  skeleton, 
we  should  leafl  a   life  of  perpetual  shudder. 
Often   and  often  do  his  bony  fingers   almost 
clutch  our  throat,  or  his  foot  is  put  out  to  give 
us  a  cross-buttock.     But  a  saving  arm  pulls 
him  back,  ere  we  have  seen  so  much  as  his 
shadow.     We  believe  all  this — but  the  belief 
that   comes   not   from   something   steadfastly 
present  before  our  eyes,  is  barren ;  and  thus 
it  is,  since  believing  is  not  seeing,  that  we 
walk   hoodwinked   nearly  all   our   days,  and 
worst  of  all   blindness  is  that  of  ingratitude 
and  forgetfulness  of  Him  whose  shield  is  for 
ever  over  us,  and  whose  mercy  shall  be  with 
us  in  the  world  beyond  the  grave. 

By  all  that  is  most  beautifully  wild  in  ani- 
mated nature,  a  Roe!  a  Roe !  Shall  we  slay 
him  where  he  stands,  or  let  him  vanish  in 
silent  glidings  in  among  his  native  woods? 
What  a  fool  for  asking  ourselves  such  a 
question  !  Slay  him  where  he  stands  to  be 
sure — for  many  pleasant  seasons  hath  he  led 
in  his  leafy  lairs,  a  life  of  leisure,  delight,  and 
love,  and  the  hour  is  come  when  he  must  sink 
down  on  his  knees  in  a  sudden  and  unpainful 
death — fair  silvan  dreamer!  We  have  drawn 
that  multitudinous  shot — and  both  barrels  of 


truth  i.>,  that  never  in  the  whole  course  of  our 
lives — and  that  course  has  been  a  strange  oue 
— did  we  ever  so  often  as  once  lose  our  way. 
Set  us  down  blindfolded  on  Zahara,  and  we 
will  beat  the  caravan  to  Timbuctoo.  Some- 
thing or  other  mysteriously  indicative  of  the 
right  direction  touches  the  soles  of  our  feet  in 
the  shape  of  the  ground  they  tread  ;  and  even 
when  our  souls  have  gone  soaring  far  awav, 
or  have  sunk  within  us.  still  have  our  feet 
pursued  the  shortest  and  the  safest  path  that 
leads  to  the  bourne  of  our  pilgrimage.  Is  not 
that  strange?  But  not  stranger  surely  than 
the  flight  of  the  bee,  on  his  first  voyage  over 
the  coves  of  the  wilderness  to  the  far-off  heath- 
er-bells— or  of  the  dove  that  is  sent  by  some 
Jew  stockjobber,  to  communicate  to  Dutchmen 
the  rise  or  fall  of  the  funds,  from  London  to 
Hamburgh,  from  the  clear  sTiores  of  silver 
'J'hames  to  the  muddy  shallows  of  the  Zuvder- 
Zee. 


Haiuish  is  yet  lying  with  his  head  on  the  rifle. 
Whiz  !  whiz !  one  is  through  lungs,  and  another 
through  neck — and  seemingly  rather  to  sleep 
than  die,  (so  various  are  the  many  modes  of 
expiration  !) 

"  In  quietness  he  lays  him  down 
tJenily,  as  a  weary  wave 
Sinks,  when  the  summer  breeze  has  died, 
Against  an  anchor'd  vessel's  side." 

Ay — Hamish — you  may  start  to  your  feet — 
and  see  realized  the  vision  of  your  sleep. 
What  a  set  of  distracted  dogs  !  But  O'Bronte 
first  catches  sight  of  the  quarry — and  clear- 
ing, with  grasshopper  spangs,  the  patches  of 
stunted  coppice,  stops  stock-still  beside  the 
roe  in  the  glade,  as  if  admiring  and  wondering 
at  the  beauty  of  the  fair  spotted  creature  !  Ye.s 
dogs  have  a  sense  of  the  beautiful.  Else  how 
can  you  account  for  their  loving  so  to  lie 
down  at  the  feet  and  lick  the  hands  of  the 
virgin  whose  eyes  are  mild,  and  forehead  meek, 
and  hair  of  placid  sunshine,  rather  than  act 
the   same    part  towards  ugly  women,   who. 


THE  MOORS. 


141 


coarser  and  coarser  in  each  successive  widow- 
hood, when  at  their  fourth  husband  are  beyond 
expression  hideous,  and  felt  to  be  so  by  the 
whole  canine  tribe  1  Spenser  must  have  seen 
some  dog  like  O'Bronte  lying  at  the  feet  and 
licking  the  hand  of  some  virgin — sweet  reader, 
like  thyself— else  never  had  he  painted  the 
posture  of  that  Lion  who  guarded  through 
Fairyland 

"  Heavenly  Una  and  her  milkwhite  lamb." 

A  divine  line  of  Wordsworth's,  which  we  shall 
never  cease  quoting  on  to  the  last  of  our  in- 
ditings,  even  to  our  dying  day  ! 

But  where,  Hamish,  are  all  the  flappers,  the 
mawsies,  and  the  mallards  1  What !  You  have 
left  them — hare,  grouse,  bag,  and  all,  at  the 
Still !  We  remember  it  now — and  all  the  dis- 
tillers are  to-night  to  be  at  our  Tent,  bringing 
with  them  feathers,  fur,  and  hide — ducks, 
pussy,  and  deer.  But  take  the  roe  on  your* 
stalwart  shoulders,  Hamish,  and  bear  it  down 
to  the  silvan  dwelling  at  the  mouth  of  Gleno. 
fiurefoot  has  a  sufficient  burden  in  us — for  we 
are  waxing  more  corpulent  every  day — and 
erelong  shall  be  a  Siienus. 

Ay,  travel  all  the  world  over,  and  a  human 
-dwelling  lovelier  in  its  wildness  shall  you 
nowhere  find,  than  the  one  that  hides  itself  in 
the  depth  of  its  own  beauty,  beneath  the  last 
of  the  green  knolls  besprinkling  Gleno,  dropt 
down  there  in  presence  of  the  peacefulest  bay 
of  all  Loch-Etive,  in  whose  cloud-softened 
bosom  it  sees  itself  reflected  among  the  con- 
genial imagery  of  the  skies.  And,  hark!  a 
murmur  as  of  swarming  bees  !  'Tis  a  Gaelic 
school — set  down  in  this  loneliest  of  all  places, 
by  that  religious  wisdom  that  rests  not  till  the 
seeds  of  saving  knowledge  shall  be  sown  over 
all  the  wilds.  That  grayhaired  minister  of 
God,  whom  all  Scotland  venerates,  hath  been 
here  from  the  great  city  on  one  of  his  hoi)- 
pilgrimages.  And,  lo !  at  his  bidding,  and 
that  of  his  coadjutors  in  the  heavenly  work,  a 
Schoolhouse  has  risen  with  its  blue  roof — the 
pure  diamond-sparkling  slates  of  Ballahulish 
— beneath  a  tuft  of  breeze-breaking  trees.  But 
whence  come  they — the  little  scholars — who 
are  all  murmuring  there  1  We  said  that  the 
shores  of  Loch-Eiivc  were  desolate.  So  seem 
they  to  the  eye  of  Imagination,  that  loves  to 
gather  up  a  hundred  scenes  into  one,  and  to 
breathe  over  the  whole  the  lonesome  spirit  of 
one  vast  wilderness.  But  Imagination  was  a 
liar  ever — a  romancer  and  a  dealer  in  dreams. 
Hers  are  the  realms  of  fiction, 

"A  boundless  contiguity  of  shade  !" 

But  the  land  of  truth  is  ever  the  haunt  of  the 
heart — there  her  eye  reposes  or  expatiates, 
and  what  sweet,  humble,  and  lowly  visions 
arise  before  it,  in  a  light  that  fadeth  not  away, 
but  abideth  for  ever !  Cottages,  huts,  shielings, 
she  sees  hidden — few  and  far  between  indeed 
— but  all  filled  with  Christian  life — among  the 
hollows  of  the  hills — and  up,  all  the  way  up 
the  great  glens — and  by  the  shores  of  the  lone- 
liest lochs — and  sprinkled,  not  so  rarely,  among 
the  woods  that  enclose  little  fields  and  mea- 
dows of  their  own — all  the  way  down — more 
animated — till  children  are  seen  gathering  be- 
fore their  doors  th?  shells  of  the  contiguous  sea. 


Look  and  listen  far  and  wide  through  a  sun- 
shiny day,  over  a  rich  wooded  region,  with 
hedgerows,  single  trees,  groves,  and  forests, 
and  yet  haply  not  one  bird  is  to  be  seen  or 
heard — neither  plumage  nor  song.  Yet  many 
a  bright  lyrist  is  there,  all  mute  till  the  harb- 
inger-hour of  sunset,  when  all  earth,  air,  and 
heaven,  shall  be  ringing  with  one  song.  Al- 
most even  so  is  it  with  this  mountain-wilder- 
ness. Small  bright-haired,  bright-eyed,  bright- 
faced  children,  come  stealing  out  in  the  morn- 
ing from  many  hidden  huts,  each  solitary  in 
its  own  site,  the  sole  dwelling  on  its  own  brae 
or  its  own  dell.  Singing  go  they  one  and  all, 
alone  or  in  small  bands,  trippingly  along  the 
wide  moors;  meeting  into  pleasant  parties  at 
cross  paths,  or  at  fords,  till  one  staled  hour 
sees  them  all  gathered  together,  as  now  in  the 
small  Schoolhouse  of  Gleno,  and  the  echo  of 
the  happy  hum  of  the  simple  scholars  is  heard 
soft  among  the  cliff's.  But  all  at  once  the  hum 
now  ceases,  and  there  is  a  hurry  out  of  doors, 
and  exulting  cry  ;  for  the  shadow  of  Hamish, 
with  the  roe  on  his  shoulders,  has  passed  the 
small  lead-latticed  window,  and  the  School- 
room has  emptied  itself  on  the  green,  which  is 
now  brightening  with  the  young  blossoms  of 
life.  "  A  roe — a  roe — a  roe  !" — is  still  the 
chorus  of  their  song;  and  the  Schoolmaster 
himself,  though  educated  at  college  for  the 
kirk,  has  not  lost  the  least  particle  of  his 
passion  for  the  chase,  and  with  kindling  eyes 
assists  Hamish  in  laying  down  his  burden,  and 
gazes  on  the  spots  with  a  hunter's  jo3^  We 
leave  you  to  imagine  his  delight  and  his  sur 
prise  when,  at  first  hardly  trusting  his  optics, 
he  beholds  Christopher  ox  Sukefoot,  an(3 
then,  patting  the  shelty  on  the  shoulder,  bows 
afl!ectionately  and  respectfully  to  the  Old  Man, 
and  while  our  hands  grasp,  takes  a  pleasure 
in  repeating  over  and  over  again  that  celebrated 
surname — North — North — North. 

After  a  brief  and  bright  hour  of  glee  and 
merriment,  mingled  with  grave  talk,  nor  marred 
by  the  sweet  undisiurbance  of  all  those  elves 
maddening  on  the  Green  around  the  Roe,  we 
express  a  wish  that  the  scholars  may  all  again 
be  gathered  together  in  the  Schoolroom,  to 
undergo  an  examination  by  the  Christian  Phi- 
losopher of  Buchanan  Lodge.  'Tis  in  all  things 
gentle,  in  nothing  severe.  All  slates  are  in- 
stantly covered  with  numerals,  and'tis  pleasant 
to  see  their  skill  in  finest  fractions,  and  in  the 
wonder-working  golden  rule  of  three.  And 
now  the  rustling  of  their  manuals  is  like  that 
of  rainy  breezes  among  the  summer  leaves. 
No  fears  are  here  that  the  Book  of  God  will 
lose  its  sanctity  by  becoming  too  familiar  to 
eye,  lip,  and  hand.  Like  the  sunlight  in  the 
sky,  the  light  that  shines  there  is  for  ever  dear 
— and  unlike  any  sunlight  in  any  skies,  never 
is  it  clouded,  permanently  bright,  and  un- 
dimmed  before  pious  eyes  by  one  single 
shadow.  We  ought,  perhaps,  to  be  ashamed, 
but  we  are  not  so — we  are  happy  that  not  an 
urchin  is  there  who  is  not  fully  better  ac- 
quainted with  the  events  and  incidents  re- 
corded in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  than 
ourselves ;  and  think  not  that  all  these  could 
have  been  so  faithfully  committed  to  memory 
without  the  perpetual  operation  of  the  heart. 


142 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


Words  are  forgotten  unless  they  are  embalmed 
in  spirit;  and  the  air  of  the  world,  blow  after- 
wards rudely  as  it  may,  shall  never  shrivel  up 
one  syllable  that  has  been  steeped  into  their 
souls  by  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel — felt  by  these 
almost  infant  disciples  of  Christ  to  be  the  very 
treaih  of  God. 

It  has  turned  out  one  of  the  sweetest  and 
screnest  afternoons  that  ever  breathed  a  hush 
over  the  face  and  bosom  of  August  woods. 
Can  we  find  it  in  our  mind  to  think,  in  our 
heart  to  feel,  in  our  hand  to  write  that  Scotland 
is  now  even  more  beautiful  than  in  our  youth  ! 
No — not  in  our  heart  to  feel — but  in  our  eyes 
to  see — for  they  tell  us  it  is  the  truth.  The 
people  have  cared  for  the  land  which  the  Lord 
their  God  hath  given  them,  and  have  made  the 
wilderness  to  blossom  like  the  rose.  The 
same  Arts  that  have  raised  their  condition 
have  brightened  their  habitation  ;  Agriculture, 
by  fertilizing  the  loveliness  of  the  low-lying 
vales,  has  sublimed  the  sterility  of  the  stupend- 
ous mountain  heights — and  the  ihundrous  tides, 
flowing  up  the  lochs,  bring  power  to  the  corn- 
fields and  pastures  created  on  hillsides  once 
horrid  with  rocks.  The  whole  country  laughs 
with  a  more  vivid  verdure — more  pure  the 
flow  of  her  streams  and  rivers — for  many  a 
fen  and  marsh  have  been  made  dry,  and  the 
rainbow  pictures  itself  on  clearer  cataracts. 

The  Highlands  were,  in  our  memory,  over- 
spread with  a  too  dreary  gloom.  Vast  tracts 
there  were  in  which  Nature  herself  seemed 
miserable;  and  if  the  heart  find  no  human 
happiness  to  repose  on.  Imagination  will  fold 
her  wings,  or  flee  away  to  other  regions,  where 
in  her  own  visionar}'  world  she  may  soar  at 
■will,  and  at  will  stoop  down  to  the  homes  of 
this  real  earth.  Assuredly  the  inhabitants  are 
happier  than  they  then  were — bcllcr  off — and 
therefore  the  change,  whatever  loss  it  may 
comprehend,  has  been  a  gain  in  good.  Ala.s  ! 
povert}- — penury — want — even  of  the  necessa- 
ries of  life — are  too  often  there  still  rife  ;  but 
patience  and  endurance  dwell  there,  heroic  and 
better  far.  Christian — nor  has  Charity  been 
slow  to  succour  regions  remote  but  not  inac- 
cessible. Charity  acting  in  power  delegated  by 
Heaven  to  our  National  Councils.  And  thus 
we  can  think  not  only  without  sadness,  but 
with  an  elevation  of  soul  inspired  by  such 
example  of  highest  virtue  in  humblest  estate, 
and  in  our  own  sphere  exposed  to  other  trials 
be  induced  to  follow  it,  set  to  us  in  many  "a 
virtuous  household,  though  exceeding  poor." 
"What  are  all  the  poetical  fancies  about  "  moun- 
tain scenery,"  that  ever  fluttered  on  the  leaves 
of  albums,  in  comparison  with  an)'  scheme, 
however  prosaic,  that  tends  in  any  way  to  in- 
crease human  comforts  ?  The  best  sonnet  that 
ever  was  written  by  a  versifier  from  the  South 
to  the  Crown  of  Benlomond,  is  not  worth  the 
worst  pair  of  worsted  stockings  trotted  in  by  a 
small  Celt  going  with  his  dad  to  seek  for  a  lost 
sheep  among  the  snow-wreaths  round  his  base. 
As  for  eagles,  and  ravens,  and  red-deer, "  those 
magnificent  creatures  so  stately  and  bright," 
let  them  shift  for  themselves — and  perhaps  in 
spite  of  all  our  rhapsodies — the  fewer  of  them 
the  better — but  among  geese,  and  turkeys,  and 
poultry,  let  propagation   flourish— the  fleecy 


folk  baa — and  the  hairy  hordes  bellow  on  a 
thousand  hills.  All  the  beauty  and  sublimity 
on  earth — over  the  Four  Quarters  of  the  World 
— is  not  worth  a  straw  if  valued  against  a  good 
harvest.  An  average  crop  is  satisfactory  ;  but 
a  crop  that  soars  high  above  an  average — a 
golden  year  of  golden  ears — sends  joy  into  the 
heart  of  heaven.  No  prating  now  of  the  de- 
generacy of  the  potato.  We  can  smg  now 
with  our  single  voice,  like  a  numerous  cho- 
rus, of 

"  Potatoes  drest  both  ways,  botli  roasted  and  boiled  ;" 

Sixty  bolls  to  the  acre  on  a  field  of  our  own  of 
twenty  acres — mealier  than  any  meal — Perth 
reds — to  the  hue  on  whose  cheeks  dull  was 
that  on  the  face  of  the  Fair  Maid  of  Perth, 
when  she  blushed  to  confess  to  Burn-y-win* 
that  hand-over-hip  he  had  struck  the  iron  when 
it  was  hot,  and  that  she  was  no  more  the 
Glover's.  Oh  bright  are  potato  blooms! — Oh 
green  are  potato-shaws! — Oh  yellow  are  potato 
plums !  But  how  oft  are  blighted  summer 
hopes  and  broken  summer  promises  !  Spare 
not  the  shaw — heap  high  the  mounds — that 
damp  nor  frost  may  dim  a  single  eye ;  so  that 
all  winter  through  poor  men  may  prosper,  and 
spring  see  settings  of  such  prolific  vigour,  that 
they  shall  yield  a  thousand-l^tild — and  the  sound 
of  rumble-te-thumps  be  heard  all  over  the 
land. 

Let  the  people  eat — let  them  have  food  for 
their  bodies,  and  then  they  will  have  heart  to 
care  for  their  souls;  and  the  good  and  the  wise 
will  look  after  their  souls,  with  sure  and  certain 
hope  of  elevating  them  from  their  hovels  to 
heaven,  while  prigs,  with  their  eyes  in  a  fine 
frenzy  rolling,  rail  at  railroads  and  all  the  other 
vile  inventions  of  an  utilitarian  age"  to  open 
up  and  expedite  communication  between  the 
Children  of  the  Mist  and  the  Sons  and  Daugh- 
ters of  the  Sunshine,  to  the  utter  annihilation 
of  the  sublime  Spirit  of  Solitude.  Be  under  no 
sort  of  alarm  for  Nature.  There  is  some  talk, 
it  is  true,  of  a  tunnel  through  Cruachan  to  the 
Black  Mount,  but  the  general  impression  seems 
to  be  that  it  will  be  a  great  bore.  A  joint-stock 
company  that  undertook  to  remove  Ben  Nevis, 
is  beginning  to  find  unexpected  obstructions. 
Feasible  as  we  confess  it  appeared,  the  idea  of 
draining  Loch  Lomond  has  been  relinquished 
for  the  easier  and  more  useful  scheme  of  con- 
verting the  Clyde  from  below  Stonebyres,  to 
above  the  Bannatyne  Fall,  into  a  canal — th« 
chief  lock  being,  in  the  opinion  of  the  most 
ingenious  speculators,  almost  ready-made  at 
Corra  Linn. 

Shall  we  never  be  done  with  our  soliloquy! 
It  may  be  a  little  longish,  for  age  is  prolix — b»*. 
every  whit  as  natural  and  congenial  with  cir- 
cumstances, as  Hamlet's  "to  be  or  not  to  be, 
that  is  the  question."  O  beloved  Albin!  our 
soul  yearneth  towards  thee,  and  we  invoke  a 
blessing  on  thy  many  thousand  glens.  The 
man  who  leaves  a  blessing  on  any  one  of  thy 
solitary  places,  and  gives  expression  to  a  good 
thought  in  presence  of  a  Christian  brother,  is  a 
missionary  of  the  church.  What  uncomplain- 
ing and  unrepining  patience  in  thy  solitary 
huts !  What  unshrinking  endurance  of  physical 
pain  and  want,  that  might  well  shame  the  Stoic's 


THE  MOORS. 


143 


philosophic  pride!  What  calm  contentment, 
akin  to  mirth,  in  so  many  lonesome  households, 
hidden  the  greatest  part  of  the  year  in  mist  and 
snow!  What  peaceful  deathbeds,  witnessed 
but  by  a  few,  a  very  few  grave  but  tearless 
eyes !  Ay,  how  many  martyrdoms  for  the  holy 
love  and  religion  of  nature,  worse  to  endure 
than  those  of  old  at  the  stake,  because  pro- 
tracted through  years  of  sore  distress,  for  ever 
on  the  very  limit  of  famine,  yet  for  ever  far 
removed  from  despair!  Such  is  the  people 
among  whom  we  seek  to  drop  the  books,  whose 
sacred  leaves  are  too  often  scattered  to  the 
winds,  or  buried  in  the  dust  of  Pagan  lands. 
Blessed  is  the  fount  from  whose  wisely  managed 
munificence  the  small  house  of  God  will  rise 
frequent  in  the  wide  and  sea-divided  wilds,  with 
its  humble  associate,  the  heath-roofed  school, 
in  which,  through  the  silence  of  nature,  will  be 
heard  the  murmu'ing  voices  of  the  children  of 
the  poor,  instructed  in  the  knowledge  useful 
for  time,  and  of  avail  for  eternity. 

We  leave  a  loose  sovereign  or  two  to  the 
Bible  Fund;  and  remounting  Surefoot,  while 
our  friend  the  school-master  holds  the  stirrup 
tenderly  to  our  toe,  jog  down  the  road  which  is 
rather  alarmingly  like  the  channel  of  a  drought- 
dried  torrent,  and  turning  round  on  the  saddle, 
send  our  farewell  salutes  to  the  gazing  scholars, 
first,  bonnet  waved  round  our  head,  and  then, 
that  replaced,  a  kiss  flung  from  our  hand. 
Hamish,  relieved  of  the  roe,  which  will  be 
taken  up  (how  you  shall  by-and-by  hear)  on 
our  way  back  to  the  Tent,  is  close  at  our  side, 
to  be  ready  should  Shelty  stumble;  O'Bronte 
as  usual  bounds  in  the  van,  and  Ponto,  Piro, 
and  Basta,  impatient  for  the  next  heather  hill, 
keep  close  at  our  heels  through  the  wood. 

We  do  not  admire  that  shooting-ground  which 
resembles  a  poultry-yard.  Grouse  and  barn- 
door fowls  are  constructed  on  opposite  princi- 
ples, the  former  being  wild,  and  the  latter  tame 
creatures,  when  in  their  respective  perfection. 
Of  all  dull  pastimes,  the  dullest  seems  to  us 
sporting  in  a  preserve;  and  we  believe  that  we 
share  that  feeling  with  the  Grand  Signior.  The 
sign  of  a  lonely  wayside  inn  in  the  Highlands, 
ought  not  to  be  the  Hen  and  Chickens.  Some 
shooters,  we  know,  sick  of  common  sport,  love 
slaughter.  From  sunrise  to  sunset  of  the  First 
Day  of  the  Moors,  they  must  bag  their  hundred 
brace.  That  can  only  be  done  where  pouts 
prevail, and  cheepers  keep  chiding;  and  where 
you  have  half-a-dozen  attendants  to  hand  you 
double-barrels  sans  intermission,  for  a  round 
dozen  of  hours  spent  in  a  perpetual  fire.  Com- 
mend us  to  a  plentiful  sprinkling  of  game;  to 
ground  which  seems  occasionally  barren,  and 
which  it  needs  a  fine  instructed  eye  to  traverse 
scientifically,  and  thereof  to  detect  the  latent 
riches.  Fear  and  Hope  are  the  Deities  whom 
Christopher  in  his  Sporting  Jacket  worships; 
and  were  they  unpropitious,  the  Moors  would 
lose  all  their  witchcraft.  We  are  a  dead  shot, 
but  not  always,  for  the  forefinger  of  our  right 
hand  is  the  most  fitful  forefinger  in  all  this 
capricious  world.  Like  all  performers  in  the 
Fine  Arts,  our  execution  is  very  uncertain; 
and  though  "toujours  pret"  is  the  impress  on 
one  side  of  our  shield,  "hit.  and  miss"  is  that  on 
the  other,  and  often  the  more  characteristic. 


A  gentleman  ought  not  to  shoot  like  a  game- 
keeper, any  more  than  at  billiards  to  play  like 
a  marker,  nor  with  four-in-hand  ought  he  to 
tool  his  prads  like  the  Portsmouth  Dragsman. 
We  choose  to  shoot  like  a  philosopher  as  we 
are,  and  to  preserve  the  golden  mean  in  mur- 
der. We  hold,  with  Aristotle,  that  all  virtue 
consists  in  the  middle,  between  the  two  ex- 
tremes; and  thus  we  shoot  in  a  style  equidistant 
from  that  of  the  gamekeeper  on  the  one  hand, 
and  that  of  the  bagman  on  the  other,  neither 
killing  nor  missing  every  bird;  but,  true  to  the 
spirit  of  the  Aristotelian  doctrine,  leaning  with 
a  decided  inclination  towards  the  first  rather 
than  the  second  predicament.  If  we  shoot  too 
well  one  day,  we  are  pretty  sure  to  make 
amends  for  it  by  shooting  just  as  much  too  ill 
another;  and  thus,  at  the  close  of  the  week, 
we  can  go  to  bed  with  a  clear  conscience.  In 
short,  we  shoot  like  gentlemen,  scholars,  poets, 
philosophers  as  we  are;  and  looking  at  us,  you 
have  a  sight 

"Of  him  who  walks  (rides)  in  glory  and  in  joy, 
Following  his  dog  upon  the  mountain  side,"  — 

a  man  evidently  not  shooting  for  a  wager,  and 
performing  a  match  from  the  mean  motive  of 
avarice  or  ambition,  but  blazing  away  "  at  his 
own  sweet  will,"  and,  without  seeming  to  know 
it,  making  a  great  noise  in  the  world.  Such, 
believe  us,  is  ever  the  mode  in  which  true  genius 
displays  at  once  the  earnestness  and  the  modesty 
of  its  character. — But,  Hamish — Hamish — 
Hamish — look  with  both  thine  eyes  on  yonder 
bank — yonder  sunny  bank,  beneath  the  shade 
of  that  fantastic  cliff's  superincumbent  shadow 
— and  seest  thou  not  basking  there  a  miracu- 
lous amount  of  the  right  sort  of  feathers  1 
They  have  packed,  Hamish — they  have  packed, 
early  as  it  yet  is  in  the  season  ;  and  the  question 
is — What  shall  wc  do?  We  have  it.  Take  up 
a  position — Hamish — about  a  hundred  yards 
in  the  rear — on  yonder  knoll — with  the  Colo- 
nel's Sweeper.  Fire  from  the  rest — mind, 
from  the  rest,  Hamish — right  into  the  centra 
of  that  bed  of  plumage,  and  we  shall  be  ready, 
with  Brown  Bess  and  her  sister,  to  pour  in  our 
quartette  upon  the  remains  as  they  rise — so 
that  not  escape  shall  one  single  feather.  Let 
our  coming  "  to  the  present"  be  your  signal. — ■ 
Bang!  Whew! — what  a  flutter!  Now  take 
that — and  that — and  that — and  that!  Ha! 
Hamish — as  at  the  springing  of  a  mine,  the 
whole  company  has  perished.  Count  the  dead. 
Twenty-one  !  Life  is  short — and  by  this  com- 
pendious style  we  take  Time  by  the  forelock. 
But  where  the  devil  are  the  ducks  ]  Oh,  yes  ! 
with  the  deer  at  the  Still.  Bag,  and  be  stir- 
ring. For  the  Salmon-pond  is  murmuring  ia 
our  ear;  and  in  another  hour  we  must  be  at 
InveraAV.  Who  said  that  Cruachan  was  a 
steep  mountain  ?  Why,  with  a  gentle,  smooth, 
and  easy  slope,  he  dips  his  footsteps  in  the 
sea-salt  waters  of  Loch-Etive's  tide,  as  if  to 
accommodate  the  old  gentleman  who,  half-a- 
century  ago,  used  to  beard  him  in  his  pride  on 
his  throne  of  clouds.  Heaven  bless  him  ! — he 
is  a  kind-hearted  mountain,  though  his  fore- 
head be  furrowed,  and  his  aspect  grim  in 
stormy  weather.  A  million  memories  "  o'  auld 
lang  syne"  revive,  as  almost  "smooth-sliding 
without  step"   Surefoot  travels  through  the 


144 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


silvan  haunts,  by  us  beloved  of  j^ore,  when 
every  day  was  a  dream,  and  every  dream 
filled  to  overflowing  with  poetic  visions  that 
swarmed  on  every  bough,  on  every  bent,  on 
every  heather-bell,  in  every  dewdrop,  in  every 
mote  o'  the  sun,  in  every  line  of  gossamer,  all 
over  greenwood  and  greensward,  gray  cliff, 
purple  heath,  blue  loch,  "  wine-faced  sea," 

"with  locks  divinely  spreadins, 
Like  sullen  hyacinths  in  venial  hue." 
and  all  over  the  sky,  seeming  then  a  glorious 
infinitude,  where  light,  and  joy,  and  beauty  had 
their  dwelling  in  calm   and  storm   alike   for 
evermore. 

Heaven  bless  thee — with  all  her  sun,  moon, 
and  stars !  there  thou  art,  dearest  to  us  of  all 
the  lochs  of  Scotland — and  they  are  all  dear — 
mountain-crowned,  clifl'-guarded,  isle-zoned, 
grove-girdled,  wide-winding  and  far-stretching, 
with  thy  many-bayed  banks  and  braes  of  brush- 
wood, fern,  broom,  and  heather,  rejoicing  in 
their  huts  and  shielings,  thou  glory  of  Argyle- 
shire,  rill-and-river-fed,  sea-arm-like,  floating 
in  thy  majesty,  magnificent  Loch  Awe  ! 

Comparisons,  so  far  from  being  odious,  are 
always  suggested  to  our  hearts  by  the  spirit  of 
love.  We  behold  Four  Lochs — Loch  Awe, 
before  our  bodily  eyes,  which  sometimes  sleep 
— Loch-Lomond,  Windermere,  Killarney,  be- 
fore those  other  eyes  of  ours  that  are  waking 
ever.  The  longest  is  Loch  Awe,  which,  from 
that  bend  below  Sonnachan  to  distant  Edder- 
line,  looks  like  a  river.  But  cut  olf,  with  the 
soft  scythe  or  sickle  of  fancy,  twenty  miles  of 
the  length  of  the  mottled  snake,  who  never 
coils  himself  up  except  in  misty  weather,  and 
who  is  now  lying  outstretched  in  the  sunshine, 
and  the  upper  part,  the  head  and  shoulders, 
are  of  themselves  a  Loch.  Pleasant  are  his 
many  hills,  and  magnificent  his  one  mountain. 
For  you  see  but  Cruachan.  He  is  the  master- 
spirit. Call  him  the  noblest  of  Scotland's 
Kings.  His  subjects  are  princes ;  and  glori- 
ously they  range  around  him,  stretching  high, 
wide,  and  far  away,  yet  all  owing  visible  alle- 
giance to  him  iheir  sole  and  undisputed  sove- 
reign. The  setting  and  the  rising  sun  do  him 
homage.  Peace  loves — as  now — to  dwell  with- 
in his  shadow;  but  high  among  the  precipices 
are  the  halls  of  the  storms.  Green  are  the 
shores  as  emerald.  But  the  dark  heather  with 
its  purple  bloom  sleeps  in  sombre  shadow 
over  wide  regions  of  dusk,  and  there  is  an 
austere  character  in  the  clifls.  Moors  and 
mosses  intervene  between  holms  and  meadows, 
and  those  black  spots  are  stacks  of  last  year's 
peats — not  huts,  as  you  might  think — but  those 
other  specks  are  huts,  somewhat  browner — 
few  roofed  with  straw,  almost  all  with  heather 
— though  the  better  houses  are  slated — nor  is 
there  in  the  world  to  be  found  slate  of  a  more 
beautiful  pale  green  colour  than  in  the  quar- 
ries of  Ballahulish.  The  scene  is  vast  and 
wild  ;  yet  so  much  beauty  is  interfused,  that  at 
such  an  hour  as  this,  its  character  is  almost 
that  of  loveliness  ;  the  rude  and  rugged  is  felt 
to  be  rural,  and  no  more;  and  the  eye  glidinsf 
from  the  cottage  gardens  on  its  banks,  to  the 
islands  on  the  bosom  of  the  Loch,  loses  sight 
of  the  mighty  masses  heaved  up  to  the  heavens, 
while  the  hoart  forgets  that  they  are  there,  in 


its  sweet  repose.  The  dim-seen  ruins  of  castle 
or  religious  house,  secluded  from  all  the  stir 
that  disturbed  the  shore,  carries  back  our 
dreams  to  the  olden  time,  and  we  awake  from 
our  reveries  of"  sorrows  suffered  long  ago,"  to 
enjoy  the  appareiit  happiness  of  the  living 
world. 

Loch  Lomond  is  a  sea!  Along  its  shores 
might  you  voyage  in  your  swift  schooner,  with 
shifting  breezes,  all  a  summer's  day,  nor  at 
sunset,  when  you  dropped  anchor,  have  seen 
half  the  beautiful  wonders.  It  is  many-isled; 
and  some  of  them  are  in  themselves  little 
worlds,  with  woods  and  hills.  Houses  are 
seen  looking  out  from  among  old  trees,  and 
children  playing  on  the  greensward  that  slopes 
safely  into  deep  water,  where  in  rushy  havens 
are  drawn  up  the  boats  of  fishermen,  or  of 
woodcutters  who  go  to  their  work  on  the  main- 
land. You  might  live  all  your  life  on  one  of 
those  islands,  and  yet  be  no  hermit.  Hundreds 
of  small  bays  indent  the  shores,  and  some  of  a 
majestic  character  take  a  fine  bold  sweep  with 
their  towering  groves,  enclosing  the  mansion 
of  a  Colquhoun  or  a  Campbell  at  enmity  no 
more,  or  the  turreicd  castle  of  the  rich  alien, 
who  there  finds  himself  as  much  at  home  as 
in  his  hereditary  hall,  Sassenach  and  Gael 
now  living  in  gentle  friendship.  What  a  pros- 
pect from  the  Point  of  Firkin.  The  loch  in 
its  whole  length  and  breadth — the  magnificent 
expanse  unbroken,  though  bedropped,  with 
unnumbered  isles — and  the  shores  diversified 
with  jutting  cape  and  far-shooting  peninsula, 
enclosing  sweet  separate  seclusions,  each  in 
itself  a  loch.  Ships  might  be  sailing  here,  the 
largest  ships  of  war;  and  there  is  anchorage 
for  fleets.  But  the  clear  course  of  the  lovely 
Leven  is  rock-crossed  and  intercepted  with 
gravelly  shallows,  and  guards  Loch-Lomond 
from  the  while-winged  roamers  that  from  all 
seas  come  crowding  into  the  Firth  of  Clyde, 
and  carry  their  streaming  flags  above  the 
woods  of  Ardgowan.  And  there  stands  Ben. 
What  cares  he  fur  all  the  multitude  of  other 
lochs  his  gaze  commands — what  cares  he  even 
for  the  salt-sea  foam  tumbling  far  away  off 
into  the  ocean  ?  All-suflicient  for  his  love  is 
his  own  loch  at  his  feet.  How  serenely  looks 
down  the  Giant !  Is  there  not  something  very 
sweet  in  his  sunny  smile  ?  Yet  were  you  to 
see  him  frown — as  we  have  seen  him — your 
heart  would  sink  ;  and  what  would  become  of 
yon — if  all  alone  by  your  own  single  self, 
wandering  over  the  wide  moor  that  glooms  in 
utter  houselessness  between  his  corries  and 
Glenfalloch — what  if  you  were  to  hear  the 
strange  mutterings  we  have  heard,  as  if  moan- 
ing from  an  earthquake  among  quagmires,  till 
you  felt  that  the  sound  came  from  the  sky,  and 
all  at  once  from  the  heart  of  night  that  had 
strangled  day  burst  a  shattering  peal  that 
might  waken  the  dead — for  Benlomond  was  in 
wrath,  and  vented  it  in  thunder? 

Perennially  enjoying  the  blessing  of  a  mild- 
er clime,  and  repaying  the  bounty  of  nature  by 
beauty  that  bespeaks  perpetual  gratitude — 
merry  as  May,  rich  as  June,  shady  as  July, 
lustrous  as  August,  and  serene  as  September, 
for  in  her  meet  the  characteristic  charms  of 
every  season,  all  delightfully  mingled  by  the 


THE  MOORS. 


145 


happy  genius  of  the  place  commissioned  to 
pervade  the  whole  from  heaven,  most  lovely 
yet  most  majestic,  we  breathed  the  music  of 
thy  name,  and  start  in  this  sterner  solitude  at 
the  sweet  syllabling  of  Windermere,  Winder- 
)Qere !  Translucent  thy  waters  as  diamond 
without  a  flaw.  Unstained  from  source  to  sea 
are  all  the  streams  soft  issuing  from  their  sil- 
ver springs  among  those  beautiful  mountains. 
Pure  are  they  all  as  dew — and  purer  look  the 
white  clouds  within  their  breast.  These  are 
indeed  the  Fortunate  Groves  !  Happy  is  every 
tree.  Blest  the  "Golden  Oak,"  which  seems 
to  shine  in  lustre  of  his  own,  unborrowed  from 
the  sun.  Fairer  far  the  flower-tangled  grass 
of  those  wood-encircled  pastures  than  any 
meads  of  Asphodel.  Thou  need'st  no  isles 
on  thy  heavenly  bosom,  for  in  the  sweet  con- 
fusion of  thy  shores  are  seen  the  images  of 
many  isles,  fragments  that  one  might  dream 
had  been  gently  loosened  from  the  land,  and 
had  floated  away  into  the  lake  till  they  had 
lost  themselves  in  the  fairy  wilderness.  But 
though  thon  need'st  them  not,  yet  hast  thou.  0 
Windermere  !  thine  own  steadfast  and  endur- 
ing isles — her  called  the  Beautiful — and  islets 
not  far  apart  that  seem  born  of  her;  for  theirs 
the  same  expression  of  counKyiance — that  of 
celestial  calm — and,  holiest  of  the  sisterhood, 
one  that  still  retains  the  ruins  of  an  oratory, 
and  bears  the  name  of  the  Virgin  Mother  Mild, 
to  whom  prays  the  mariner  when  sailing,  in 
the  moonlight,  along  Sicilian  seas. 

Killarney!  From  the  village  ofCloghereen 
issued  an  uncouth  figure,  who  called  himself 
the  "Man  of  the  Mountain;"  and  pleased  with 
Pan,  we  permitted  him  to  blow  his  horn  be- 
fore us  up  lo  the  top  of  Mangerton,  where  the 
Devil,  'tis  believed,  scooped  out  the  sward  be- 
neath the  cliff's  into  a  Punch-bowl.  No  doubt 
he  did,  and  the  Old  Potter  wrought  with  fire. 
'Tis  the  crater  of  an  extinct  volcano.  Charles 
Fox,  Weld  says,  and  Wright  doubts,  swam  the 
Pool.  Why  not?  'Tis  not  so  cold  as  the  Po- 
lar Sea.  We  swam  across  it — as  Mulcocky, 
■were  he  alive,  but  he  is  dead,  could  vouch ; 
and  felt  braced  like  a  drum.  What  a  pano- 
rama!  Our  first  feeling  was  one  of  grief  that 
we  were  not  an  Irishman.  We  knew  not 
where  to  fix  our  gaze.  Surrounded  by  the 
dazzling  bewilderment  of  all  that  multitudi- 
nous magnificence,  the  eye,  as  if  afraid  to 
grapple  with  the  near  glor}' — for  such  another 
day  never  shone  from  heaven — sought  relief 
in  the  remote  distance,  and  slid  along  the 
beautiful  river  Kenmare,  insinuating  itself 
among  the  recesses  of  the  mountains,  till  it 
rested  on  the  green  glimmer  of  the  far-off  sea. 
The  grandeur  was  felt,  far  off  as  it  was,  of 
that  iron-bound  coast.  Coming  round  with 
an  easy  sweep,  as  the  eyes  of  an  eagle  may 
do,  when  hanging  motionless  aloft  he  but 
turns  his  head,  our  eyes  took  in  all  the  mighty 
range  of  the  Reeks,  and  rested  in  awe  on 
Carran  Tual.  Wild  yet  gentle  was  the  blue 
aerial  haze  over  the  glimpses  of  the  Upper 
Lake,  where  soft  and  sweet,  in  a  girdle  of 
rocks,  seemed  to  be  hanging,  now  in  air  and 
now  in  water — for  all  was  strangely  indistinct 
in  the  dim  confusion — masses  of  green  light 
tliat  might  be  islands  with  their  lovely  trees ; 
19 


but  suddenly  tipt  with  fire  shone  out  the  gold- 
en pinnacles  of  the  Eagle's  Nest ;  and  as  again 
they  were  tamed  by  cloud-shadow,  the  glow 
of  Purple  Mountain  for  a  while  enchained  our 
vision,  and  then  left  it  free  to  feast  on  the 
forests  of  Glena,  till,  wandering  at  the  capri- 
cious will  of  fancy,  it  floated  in  delight  over 
the  woods  of  Mucruss,  and  long  lost  among 
the  trembling  imagery  of  the  water,  found  last- 
ing repose  on  the  steadfast  beauty  of  the  sil- 
van isle  of  Inisfallen. 

But  now  for  the  black  mass  of  rapid  waters 
that,  murmuring  from  loch  to  river,  rush  roar- 
ing through  that  rainbow-arch,  and  bathe  the 
green  woods  in  freshening  spray-mist  through 
a  loveliest  landscape,  that  steals  along  with 
its  meadow-sprinkling  trees  close  to  the  very 
shore  of  Loch-Etive,  binding  the  two  lochs  to- 
gether with  a  silvan  band — her  whose  calmer 
spirit  never  knows  the  ebb  or  flow  of  tide,  and 
her  who  fluctuates  even  when  the  skies  are 
still  with  the  swelling  and  subsiding  tumult 
duly  sent  up  into  and  recalled  down  from  the 
silence  of  her  inland  solitude.  And  now  for 
one  pool  in  that  river,  called  bj^  eminence  the 
Salmon  Pool,  whose  gravelly  depths  are  some- 
times paved  with  the  blue  backs  of  the  silver- 
scaled  shiners,  all  strong  as  sunbeams,  for  a 
while  reposing  there,  till  the  river  shall  black- 
en in  its  glee  to  the  floods  falling  in  Glen- 
Scrae  and  Glenorchj^and  then  will  they  shoot 
through  the  cataract — for  'lis  all  one  fall  be- 
tween the  lochs — passionate  of  the  sweet  fresh 
waters  in  which  the  Abbey-Isle  reflects  her 
one  ruined  tower,  or  Kilchurn,  at  all  times 
dim  or  dark  in  the  shadow  of  Cruachan, 
see  his  grim  turrets,  momentarily  less  grim, 
imaged  in  the  tremblings  of  the  casual  sun- 
shine. Sometimes  they  lie  like  stones,  nor 
unless  you  stir  them  up  Avith  a  long  pole,  will 
they  stir  in  the  gleam,  more  than  if  they  were 
shadows  breathed  from  trees  when  all  winds 
are  dead.  But  at  other  times,  they  are  on 
feed ;  and  then  no  sooner  does  the  fly  drop  on 
the  w-ater  in  its  blue  and  yellow  gaudiness, 
(and  oh  !  but  the  brown  mallard  wing  is 
bloody — bloody!)  than  some  snout  sucks  it  in 
— some  snout  of  some  swine-necked  shoulder- 
bender;  and  instant!}' — as  by  dexterously  drop- 
ping your  elbow  you  give  him  the  butt,  and 
strike  the  barb  through  his  tongue — down  the 
long  reach  of  the  river  vista'd  along  that 
straight  oak-avenue — but  with  clear  space  of 
greensward  between  wood  and  water — shoots 
the  giant  steel-stung  in  his  fear,  bounding 
blue-white  into  the  air,  and  then  down  into 
the  liquid  element  with  a  plunge  as  of  a  man, 
or  rather  a  horse,  till  your  heart  leaps  to  your 
mouth,  or,  as  the  Greeks  we  believe  used  to 
say,  to  your  nose,  and  you  are  seen  galloping 
along  the  banks,  by  spectators  in  search  of  the 
picturesque,  and  ignorant  of  angling,  supposed 
in  the  act  of  making  your  escape,  with  an  in- 
comprehensible weapon  in  both  hands,  from 
some  rural  madhouse. 

Eh?  eh?  not  in  our  hat — not  in  our  waist- 
coat— not  in  our  jacket — not  in  our  breeches  ! 
By  the  ghost  of  Autolycus  some  pickpocket, 
while  •w'e  were  moralizing,  has  abstracted  our 
Lascelles !  we  may  as  well  tie  a  stone  to  eacn 
of  our  feet,  and  sink  away  from  all  sense  if 
N 


146 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


misery  in  the  Salmon  Pool.  Oh  !  that  it  had 
been  our  purse  !  Who  cares  for  a  dozen  dirty 
sovereigns  and  a  score  of  nasty  notes  "?  And 
■R-hat's  the  use  of  them  to  us  now,  or  indeed  at 
any  time  1  And  what's  the  use  of  this  identi- 
cal rod?  Hang  it,  if  a  little  thing  would  not 
make  us  break  it!  A  multiplying  reel  indeed  ! 
The  invention  of  a  fool.  The  Tent  sees  not 
us  again ;  this  afternoon  we  shall  return  to 
Edinburgh.  Don't  talk  to  us  of  flies  at  the 
next  village.  There  are  no  flies  at  the  village 
— there  is  no  village.  O  Beelzebub  !  O  Satan  I 
was  ever  man  tempted  as  we  are  tempted  ? 
See — see  a  Fish — a  fine  Fish — an  enormous 
Fish — leaping  to  insult  us  !  Give  us  our  gun 
that  we  may  shoot  him — no — no,  dang  guns 
— and  dang  this  great  clumsy  rod!  There — 
let  it  lie  there  for  the  first  person  that  passes — 
for  we  swear  never  to  angle  more.  As  for  the 
Awe  we  never  liked  it — and  wonder  what  in- 
fatuation brought  us  here.  We  shall  be  made 
to  pay  for  this  yet — whew  !  there  was  a  twinge 
— that  big  toe  of  ours  we'll  warrant  is  as  red 
as  fire,  and  we  bitterly  confess  that  we  deserve 
the  gout.     Och  !  och  !  och  ! 

But  hark!  whoop  and  hollo,  and  is  that  too 
the  music  of  the  hunter's  horn?  Reverberat- 
ing among  the  woods  a  well-known  voice  sa- 
lutes our  ear,  and  there!  bounds  Hamish  over 
the  rocks  like  a  chamois  taking  his  pastime. 
Holding  up  our  Lascf.llesI  he  places  it  with 
a  ft:\v  respectful  words — hoping  we  have  not 
missed  it — and  standing  aloof — leaves  us  to 
our  own  reflections  and  our  flies.  Nor  do 
those  amount  to  remorse — nor  these  to  more 
than  a  few  dozens.  Samson's  strength  having 
been  restored — we  speak  of  our  rod,  mind  ye, 
not  of  ourselves — we  lift  up  our  downcast  ej-es, 
and  steal  somewhat  ashamed  a  furtive  glance 
at  the  trees  and  stones  that  must  have  over- 
heard and  overseen  all  our  behaviour.  We 
leave  those  who  have  been  in  any  thing  like 
the  same  predicament  to  confess — not  pub- 
licly— there  is  no  occasion  for  that — nor  on 
their  knees  —but  to  their  own  consciences,  if 
they  have  any,  their  grief  and  their  joy,  their 
guilt,  and,  we  hope,  their  gratitude.  Trans- 
ported though  they  were  beyond  all  bounds,  we 
forgive  them  ;  for  even  those  great  masters  of 
wisdom,  the  Stoics,  were  not  infallible,  nor 
were  they  always  able  to  sustain,  at  their  ut- 
most strength,  in  practice  the  principles  of 
their  philosophy. 

We  are  in  a  bloody  mood,  and  shall  not 
leave  this  Pool — without  twenty  mortal  mur- 
ders on  our  head.  Jump  away,  Troi-ts — with- 
out any  bowels  of  compassion  for  the  race  of 
flies.  Devouring  Ephemerals!  Can  yon  not 
sulTer  the  poor  insects  to  sport  out  their  day  ? 
They  must  be  insipid  eating;  but  here  are 
some  savoury  exceedingly — it  is  needless  to 
mention  their  name — that  carry  snuce  picpiintc 
in  their  tails.  Do  try  the  taste  of  this  bobber 
— but  any  one  of  the  three  you  please.  There  ! 
hold  fast  KinnY — for  that  is  a  Whopper.  A 
Mort !  we  did  not  suppose  there  were  any  in 
the  river.  Why.  he  springs  as  if  he  were  a 
Fishi  Go  it  again.  Beauty.  We  ourselves 
couVd  jump  a  bit  in  ourday— nearly  four  times 
our  own  length — but  we  never  could  clear  our 
own  height,  nor  within  half-a-foot  of  it;  while 


you — our  Hearty — though  not  two  feet  long, 
certainly  do  the  perpendicular  to  the  tune  of  fotir 
— from  tail-fin  to  water-surface — your  snout 
being  six  nearer  the  sky  than  the  foam-bells 
you  break  in  your  descent  into  your  native 
element.  Cayenne,  mustard,  and  ketchup  is 
our  zest,  and  we  shall  assuredly  eat  j'ou  at 
sunset.  Do  you  knotv  the  name  of  the  Fool 
at  the  other  end — according  to  Dr.  Johnson? 
CnnisTOPHEn  North.  'Tis  an  honour  to  be 
captured  by  the  Old  Knight  of  the  Bloody 
Hand.  You  deserve  to  die  such  a  death — for 
you  keep  in  the  middle  of  the  current  like  a 
mort  of  mettle,  and  are  not  one  of  the  skulkers 
that  seek  the  side,  and  would  fain  lake  to  the 
bush  in  hopes  of  prolonging  life  by  foul  en- 
tanglement. Bravely  bored,  Gil  Morrice.  There 
is  as  great  difl^erence  in  the  moral  qualities  of 
the  finn)'  tribe  as  among  us  humans — and  we 
have  known  some  cowardly  wretches  escape 
our  clutches  by  madly  floundering  in  among 
floating  weeds,  or  diving  down  among  laby- 
rinths of  stone  at  the  bottom,  in  paroxysms  of 
fear  that  no  tackle  could  withstand,  not  even 
Mackenzie's.  He  has  broke  his  heart.  Feeble 
as  the  dying  gladiator,  the  arena  swims  around 
him,  and  he  around  the  arena — till  sailing  with 
snout  shore-ward,  at  sea  in  his  own  pool,  he 
absolutely  rolls  in  convulsions  in  between  our 
very  feet,  and  we,  unprepared  for  such  a  mode 
of  procedure,  hastily  retreating,  discover  that 
our  joints  are  not  so  supple  as  of  yore,  and 
;)/(!(/  rloit  on  our  back  among  the  go  wans. 
O'Bronte  tooths  him  by  the  cerebellum,  and 
carries  him  up-brae  in  his  mouth  like  a  maw- 
kin.     About  six  pounds. 

Had  we  killed  such  a  mort  as  is  now  in  Ma- 
gog, fifty  years  ago,  we  should  not  have  rested 
a  single  instant  after  basketing  him,  before  re- 
rushing,  with  a  sanguinar)'  aspect,  to  the  work 
of  death.  Now  carelessly  diffused,  we  lie  on 
our  elbow,  with  our  mild  cheek  on  our  palm, 
and  keep  gazing — but  not  lack-a-dkisically^-on 
the  circumambient  woods.  Yes  !  circumam- 
bient— for  look  where  we  will,  they  accompany 
our  ken  like  a  peristrephic  panorama.  If  men 
have  been  seen  walking  like  trees,  why  may 
not  trees  be  seen  walking  like  men — in  batta- 
lia— in  armies — but  oh!  how  peaceful  the  ar- 
ray; and  as  the  slow  silvan  swimming  away 
before  our  eyes  subsides  and  settles,  in  that 
steadfast  variegation  of  colouring,  what  a  depth 
of  beauty  and  grandeur,  of  joy  and  peace! 

Phin !  this  rod  is  thy  masterpiece.  And 
what  Gut!  There  she  has  it!  Reel-music  for 
ever!  Ten  fathom  are  run  out  already — and 
see  how  she  shoots,  Hamish; — such  a  somer- 
set as  that  was  never  thrown  from  a  spring- 
board. Just  the  size  for  strength  and  agility- 
twenty  pound  to  an  ounce — jimp  wcieht,  Ha- 
mish— ha!  Harlequin  art  thou — or  Columbine  1 
Assuredly  neither  Clown  nor  Pantaloon.  Now 
we  have  turned  her  ladyship's  nose  up  the 
stream,  her  lungs,  if  she  have  any,  must  be  be- 
ginning to  labour,  and  we  almost  hear  her 
snore.  What!  in  the  sulks  already — sullen 
among  the  stones.  But  we  shall  make  you 
mudge,  madam,  were  we  to  fear  the  very  tongue 
out  of  your  mouth.  Aye.  once  more  down  the 
middle  to  the  tune  of  that  spirited  country- 
dance — "Off  she  goes!"      Set  comers,  and 


THE  MOORS. 


147 


reel!  The  gaff,  Hamish — the  gaff!  and  the 
landing-net!  For  here  is  a  shallow  of  the  sil- 
ver sand,  spreading  into  the  bay  of  a  ford — and 
ere  she  recovers  from  her  astonishment,  here 
will  we  land  her — with  a  strong  pull,  a  long 
pull,  and  a  pull  altogether — just  on  the  edge 
of  the  greensward — and  then  smite  her  on 
the  shoulder,  Hamish — and,  to  make  assurance 
doubly  sure,  the  net  under  her  tail,  and  hoist 
her  aloft  in  the  sunshine,  a  glorious  prize, 
dazzling  the  daylight,  and  giving  a  brighter 
verdure  to  the  woods. 

He  who  takes  two  hours  to  kill  a  fish — be  its 
bulk  what  it  maj^ — is  no  man,  and  is  not  worth 
his  meat,  nor  the  vital  air.  The  proportion  is 
a  minute  to  the  pound.  This  rule  were  we 
taught  by  the  "  Best  at  Most"  among  British 
sportsmen — Scrope  the  Matchless  on  moor, 
mountain,  river,  loch,  or  sea;  and  with  exqui- 
site nicety,  have  ve  now  carried  it  into  prac- 
tice. Away  with  your  useless  steelyards.  Let 
us  feel  her  teeth  with  our  fore-finger,  and  then 
held  out  at  arm's  length — so — we  know  by 
feeling,  that  she  is,  as  we  said  soon  as  we  saw 
her  side,  a  twenty  pounder  to  a  drachm,  and  j 
we  have  been  true  to  time  within  two  seconds. ' 
She  has  literally  no  head ;  but  her  snout  is  in 
her  shoulders.  That  is  the  beauty  of  a  fish — 
high  and  round  shoulders,  short  waisted,  no 
loins,  but  all  body,  and  not  long  of  terminating 
— the  shorter  stiJl  the  better — in  a  tail  sharp 
and  pointed  as  Diana's,  when  she  is  crescent 
in  the  sky. 

And  lo,  and  behold  !  there  is  Diana — but  not 
crescent — for  round  and  broad  is  she  as  the 
sun  himself — shining  in  the  south,  with  as  yet 
a  needless  light — for  daylight  has  not  gone 
down  in  the  west — and  we  can  hardly  call  it 
gloaming.  Chaste  and  cold  though  she  seem, 
a  nunlike  luminary  who  has  just  taken  the 
veil — a  transparent  veil  of  fine  fleecy  clouds — 
yet,  alas  !  is  she  frail  as  of  old,  when  she  de- 
scended on  the  top  of  Latmos,  to  hold  dalliance 
with  Endymion.  She  has  absolutely  the  ap- 
pearance of  being  in  the  family  way — and  not 
far  from  her  time.  Lo!  two  of  her  children 
stealing  from  ether  towards  her  feet.  One  on 
her  right  hand,  and  another  on  her  left — the 
fairest  daughters  that  ever  charmed  mother's 
heart — and  in  heaven  called  stars.  What  a 
celesti.al  trio  the  three  form  in  the  sky  !  The 
face  of  the  moon  keeps  brightening  as  the 
lesser  two  twinkle  into  larger  lustre  ;  and  now, 
though  Day  is  still  lingering,  we  feel  that  it  is 
Night.  When  the  one  comes  and  when  the 
other  goes,  what  eye  can  note,  what  tongue  can 
tell — but  what  heart  feels  not  in  the  dewy  hush 
divine,  as  the  power  of  the  beauty  of  earth  de- 
cays over  us,  and  a  still  dream  descends  upon 
us  in  the  power  of  the  beauty  of  heaven  I 

But  hark  !  the  regular  twang  and  dip  of  oars 
coming  up  the  river — and  lo  !  indistinct  in  the 
distance,  something  moving  through  the  moon- 
shine— and  now  taking  the  likeness  of  a  boat — 
a  barge — with  bonnetted  heads  leaning  back 
at  every  flashing  stroke — and,  Hamish,  list! 
a  choral  song  in  thine  own  dear  native  tongue  ! 
Sent  hither  by  the  Queen  of  the  sea-fairies  to 
bear  back  in  state  Christopher  North  to  the 
Tent?  No.  'Tis  the  big  coble  belonging  to 
the  tacksman  of  the  Awe — and  the  crew  are 


going  to  pull  her  through  the  first  few  hours 
of  the  night — along  with  the  flowing  tide — up 
to  Kinloch-Etive,  to  try  a  cast  with  their  long 
net  at  the  mouth  of  the  river,  now  winding  dim 
like  a  snake  from  King's  House  beneath  the 
Black  Mount,  and  along  the  bays  at  the  head 
of  the  Loch.  A  rumour  that  we  were  on  the 
river  had  reached  them — and  see  an  awning  of 
tartan  over  the  stern,  beneath  which,  as  we  sit, 
the  sun  may  not  smite  our  head  by  day,  nor 
the  moon  by  night.  We  embark — and  descend- 
ing the  river  like  a  dream,  rapidly  but  stilly, 
and  kept  in  the  middle  of  the  current  by  cun- 
ning helmsman,  without  aid  of  idle  oar,  all  six 
suspended,  we  drop  along  through  the  silvan 
scenery,  gliding  serenely  away  back  into  the 
mountain  gloom,  and  enter  into  the  wider 
moonshine  trembling  on  the  wavy  verdure  of 
the  foam-crested  sea.  May  this  be  Loch-Etive? 
Yea — verily ;  but  so  broad  here  is  its  bosom, 
and  so  far  spreads  the  billowy  brightness,  that 
we  might  almost  believe  that  our  bark  was 
bounding  over  the  ocean,  and  marching  mer- 
rily on  the  main.  Are  we — into  such  a  dream 
might  fancy  for  a  moment  half  beguile  herself 
— rowing  back,  after  a  day  among  the  savage 
islanders,  to  our  ship  lying  at  anchor  in  the 
offing,  on  a  voyage  of  discovery  round  the 
world? 

Where  are  all  the  dogsl  Ponto,  Piro,  Basta, 
trembling  partly  with  cold,  partly  with  hunger, 
partly  with  fatigue,  and  partly  with  fear,  among 
and  below  the  seats  of  the  rowers — with  their 
noses  somewhat  uncomfortably  laid  between 
their  fore-paws  on  the  tarry  timbers;  but 
O'Bronte  boldly  sitting  at  our  side,  and  wist- 
fully eyeing  the  green  swell  as  it  heaves  beau- 
tifully by,  ready  at  the  slightest  signal  to  leap 
overboard,  and  wallow  like  a  walrus  in  the 
brine,  of  which  you  might  almost  think  he 
was  born  and  bred,  so  native  seems  the  element 
to  the  "  Dowg  o'  Dowgs."  Ay,  these  are  sea- 
mews,  O'Bronte,  wheeling  white  as  silver  in 
the  moonshine  ;  but  we  shall  not  shoot  them — 
no — no — no — we  tvill  not  shoot  you,  ye  images 
of  playful  peace,  so  fearlessly,  nay,  so  lovingly 
attending  our  bark  as  it  bounds  over  the  breasts 
of  the  billows,  in  motion  quick  almost  as  your 
slowest  flight,  while  ye  linger  around,  and  be- 
hind, and  before  our  path,like  fair  spirits  wiling 
us  along  up  this  great  Loch,  farther  and  farther 
through  gloom  and  glimmer,  into  the  heart  of 
profounder  solitude.  On  what  errands  of  your 
own  are  ye  winnowing  your  way,  stooping 
ever  and  anon  just  to  dip  your  wing-tips  in  the 
waves,  and  then  up  into  the  open  air — the  blue 
light  filling  this  magnificent  hollow — or  seen 
o-lancing  along  the  shadows  of  the  mountains 
as  they  divide  the  Loch  into  a  succession  of 
separate  bays,  and  often  seem  to  block  it  up, 
till  another  moonlight  reach  is  seen  extending 
far  beyond,  and  carries  the  imagination  on — on 

on — into  inland  recesses  that  seem  to  lose  at 

last  all  connection  with  the  forgotten  sea.  All 
at  once  the  moon  is  like  a  ghost ; — and  we  be- 
lieve— Heaven  knows  why — in  the  authenticity 
of  Ossian's  Poems. 

Was  there  ever  such  a  man  as  Ossian  ?  We 
devoutly  hope  there  was — for  if  so,  then  there 
were  a  prodigious  number  of  fine  fellows,  be- 
sides his  Bardship,  who  after  their  death  figured 


148 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


away  as  their  glimmering  ghosts,  with  noble 
effect,  among  the  moonlight  mists  of  the  moun- 
tains. The  poetry  of  Ossian  has,  it  is  true, 
since  the  days  of  Macpherson,  in  no  way 
coloured  the  poetry  of  the  island  ;  and  Mr. 
Wordsworth,  who  has  written  beautiful  lines 
about  the  old  Phantom,  states  that  fact  as  an 
argument  against  its  authenticity.  He  thinks 
Ossian,  as  we  now  possess  him,  no  poet;  and 
alleges  that  if  these  compositions  had  been  the  j 
good  things  so  many  people  have  thought 
them,  they  would,  in  some  way  or  other,  have 
breathed  their  spirit  over  the  poetical  genius 
of  the  land.  Who  knows  that  they  may  not 
do  so  yet?  The  lime  may  not  have  come. 
But  must  all  true  poetry  necessarily  create  imi- 
tation, and  a  school  of  imitators  1  One  sees 
no  reason  why  it  must.  Besides,  the  life  which 
the  poetry  of  Ossian  celebrates,  has  utterly 
passed  away  ;  and  the  poetry  itself,  good,  bad, 
or  indifferent,  is  so  very  peculiar,  that  to  imi- 
tate it  at  all,  you  must  almost  transcribe  it. 
That,  for  a  good  many  years,  was  often  done, 
but  naturally  inspired  any  other  feeling  than 
delight  or  admiration.  But  the  simple  question 
is,  Do  the  poems  of  Ossian  delight  greatly  and 
widely]  We  think  they  do.  Nor  can  we  be- 
lieve that  they  would  not  still  delight  such  a 
poet  as  Mr.  Wordsworth.  What  dreariness 
overspreads  them  all !  What  a  melancholy 
spirit  shrouds  all  his  heroes,  passing  before  us 
on  the  cloud,  after  all  their  battles  have  been 
fought,  and  their  tombs  raised  on  the  hill !  The 
very  picture  of  the  old  blind  Hero-bard  him- 
self, often  attended  by  the  weeping  virgins 
whom  war  has  made  desolate,  is  always  touch- 
ing, often  sublime.  The  desert  is  peopled  with 
lamenting  mortals,  and  the  mists  that  wrap 
them  with  ghosts,  whose  remembrances  of  this 
life  are  all  dirge  and  elegy.  True,  that  the 
images  are  few  and  endlessly  reiterated  ;  but 
that,  we  suspect,  is  the  case  with  all  poetry 
composed  not  in  a  philosophic  age.  The  great 
and  constant  appearances  of  nature  suffice,  in 
their  simplicity,  for  all  its  purposes.  The  poet 
seeks  not  to  vary  their  character,  and  his 
hearers  are  willing  to  be  charmed  over  and 
over  again  by  the  same  strains.  We  believe 
that  the  poetry  of  Ossian  would  be  destroyed 
by  any  greater  distinctness  or  variety  of  image- 
ry. And  if,  indeed,  Fingal  lived  and  C)ssian 
sung,  we  must  believe  that  the  old  bard  was 
blind;  and  we  suspect  that  in  such  an  age, 
such  a  man  would,  in  his  blindness,  think 
dreamily  indeed  of  the  torrents,  and  lakes,  and 
heaths,  and  clouds,  and  mountains,  moons  and 
stars,  which  he  had  leapt,  swam,  walked, 
climbed,  and  gazed  on  in  the  days  of  his  re- 
joicing youth.  Then  has  he  no  tenderness — 
no  pathos — no  beauty.  Alas  for  thousands  of 
hearts  and  souls  if  it  be  even  so !  For  then 
are  many  of  their  holiest  dreams  worthless  all, 
and  divinest  melancholy  a  mere  complaint  of 
the  understanding,  which  a  bit  of  philosophi- 
cal criticism  will  purge  away,  as  the  leech's 
phial  does  a  disease  of  the  blood. 

Macpherson's  Ossian, is  itnotpoetryl  Words- 
worth says  it  is  not — but  Christopher  North 
says  it  is — with  all  reverence  for  the  King. 
Let  its  antiquity  be  given  up — let  such  a  state 
of  society  as  is  therein  described  be  declared 


impossible — let  all  the  inconsistencies  and 
violations  of  nature  ever  charged  against  it 
be  acknowledged — let  all  its  glaring  plagiar- 
isms from  poetry  of  modern  date  inspire  what 
derision  they  may — and  far  worse  the  perpetual 
repetition  of  its  own  imbecilities  and  inanities, 
wearying  one  down  even  to  disgust  and  anger; 
— yet,  in  spile  of  all,  are  we  not  made  to  feel, 
not  only  that  we  are  among  the  mountains,  but 
to  forget  that  there  is  any  other  world  in  exist- 
ence, save  that  which  glooms  and  glimmers, 
and  wails  and  raves  around  us  in  mists  and 
clouds,  and  storms,  and  snows — full  of  lakes 
and  rivers,  sea-intersected  and  sea-surrounded, 
with  a  sky  as  troublous  as  the  earth — yet  both 
at  times  visited  with  a  mournful  beauty  that 
sinks  strancely  into  the  soul — while  ihe  sha- 
dowy life  depictured  there  eludes  notour  human 
sympathies  ;  nor  yet,  aerial  though  they  be — 
so  sweet  and  sad  are  their  voices — do  tlfcre 
float  by  as  unbeloved,  unpitied,  or  unhonoured 
— single,  or  in  bands — the  ghosts  of  the  brave 
and  beautiful  when  the  lew  stars  are  dim,  and 
the  moon  is  felt,  not  seen,  to  be  yielding  what 
faint  light  there  may  be  in  the  skies. 

The  boat  in  a  moment  is  a  bagpipe;  and  not 
only  so,  but  all  the  mountains  are  bagpipes, 
and  so  arc  the  clouds.  All  the  bagpipes 
in  the  world  are  here,  and  they  fill  heaven 
and  earth.  'Tis  no  exaggeraticm — much  less 
a  fiction — but  the  soul  and  body  uftnith.  There 
Hamish  stands  stalely  at  the  prow;  and  as  the 
boat  hangs  by  midships  on  the  very  point  that 
commands  all  the  echoes,  he  fills  the  whole 
night  with  the  "  Campbells  are  coming,"  till  the 
sky  yells  with  the  gathering  as  of  all  the  Clans. 
His  eyes  are  triumphantly  fixed  on  ours  to 
catch  their  emotions ;  his  fingers  cease  their 
twinkling;  and  still  that  wild  gathering  keeps 
playing  of  itself  among  the  mountains — faint- 
er and  fainter,  as  it  is  flung  from  cliff  to  cliff, 
till  it  dies  away  far — far  off — as  if  in  infinitude 
— sweet  even  and  soft  in  its  evanescence  as 
some  lover's  lute. 

We  are  now  in  the  bay  of  Gleno.  For  though 
moonlight  strangely  alters  the  whole  face  of 
nature,  confusing  its  most  settled  features,  and 
with  a  gentle  glamoury  blending  with  the  green- 
sward what  once  was  the  gray  granite,  and  in- 
vesting with  apparent  woodiness  what  an  hour 
ago  was  the  desolation  of  herbless  cliffs — yet 
not  all  the  changes  that  wondrous  nature,  in 
ceaseless  ebb  and  flow,  ever  wrought  on  her 
works,  could  metamorphose  out  of  our  recog- 
nition that  Glen,  in  which,  one  night — long — 
long  ago — 
"  In  life's  morning  march,  wlicn  our  spirit  was  young:" 

we  were  visited  by  a  dream — a  dream  that 
shadowed  forth  in  its  inexplicable  symbols  the 
whole  course  of  our  future  life — the  graves — 
the  tombs  where  many  we  loved  are  r^ow 
buried — that  churchyard,  where  we  hope 
and  believe  that  one  day  our  own  bones  will 
rest. 

But  who  shouts  from  the  shore,  Hamish — 
and  now,  as  if  through  his  fingers,  sends  forth 
a  sharp  shrill  whistle  that  pierces  the  skyi 
Ah,  ha!  we  ken  his  shadow  in  the  light,  with 
the  roe  on  his  shoulder.  'Tis  the  schoolmas- 
ter of  Gleno,  bringing  down  our  quarry  to  the 


THE  MOORS. 


149 


boat — kilted,  \re  declare,  like  a  true  Son  of  the 
Mist.  The  shore  here  is  shelving  but  stony, 
and  our  prow  is  aground.  But  strong-spined 
and  loined,  and  strong  in  their  withers,  are  the 
M'Dougals  of  Lorn  ;  and,  wading  up  to  the  red 
hairy  knees,  he  has  flung  the  roe  into  the  boat. 
and  followed  it  himself  like  a  deer-hound.  So 
bend  to  your  oars,  my  hearties — my  heroes — 
the  wind  freshens,  and  the  tide  strengthens  from 
the  sea ;  and  at  eight  knots  an  hour  we  shall 
sweep  along  the  shadows,  and  soon  see  the 
lantern,  twinkling  as  from  a  lighthouse,  on  the 
pole  of  our  Tent. 

In  a  boat,  upon  a  great  sea-arm,  at  night, 
among  mountains,  who  Avould  be  so  senseless, 
so  soulless  as  to  speak?  The  hour  has  its 
might, 

"  Because  not  of  this  noisy  world,  hut  silent  and  divine  I" 
A  sound  there  is  in  the  sea-green  swell,  and 
the  hollows  of  the  rocks,  that  keep  muttering,  as 
their  entrances  feel  the  touch  of  the  tide.  Butno- 
thingbeneaih  the  moon  can  be  more  solemn, now 
that  her  aspect  is  so  wan,  and  that  some  melan- 
choly spirit  has  obscured  the  lustre  of  the  stars. 
We  feel  as  if  the  breath  of  old  elegiac  poetry 
were  visiting  our  slumber.  All  is  sad  within 
us,  )'et  why  we  know  not ;  and  the  sadness  is 
stranger  as  it  is  deeper  after  a  day  of  almost 
foolish  pastime,  spent  by  a  being  who  believes 
that  he  is  immortal,  and  that  this  life  is  but  the 
threshold  of  a  life  to  come.  Poor,  pun}',  and 
paltry  pastimes  indeed  are  they  all!  But  are 
they  more  so  than  those  pursuits  of  which  the 
moral  poet  has  sung, 

"  The  paths  of  filory  lead  but  to  the  grave  !" 
Methinks,  now,  as  we  are  entering  into  a  sabler 
mass  of  shadow,  that  the  doctrine  of  eternal  pun- 
ishment of  sins  committed  in  time — but — 

"Here's  a  health  to  all  good  lasses, 
Here's  a  health  to  all  good  lasses, 
Pledge  it  merrily,  fill  your  glasses; 
Let  the  bumper  toast  go  round. 
Let  the  bumper  toast  go  round !" 

Rest  on  your  oars,  lads.  Hamish  !  the  quech ! 
give  each  man  a  caulker,  that  his  oar  may  send 
a  bolder  twang  from  its  roUock,  and  our  fish- 
coble  walk  the  waves  like  a  man-of-war's  gig, 
with  the  captain  on  board,  going  ashore,  after 
a  long  cruise,  to  meet  his  wife.  Now  she  spins  ! 
and  lo  !  lights  at  Kinloch-Etive,  and  beyond  on 
the  breast  of  the  mountain,  bright  as  Hesperus 
— the  pole-star  of  our  Tent! 

Well,  this  is  indeed  the  Londe  of  Faery  !  A 
car  with  a  nag  caparisoned  at  the  water  edge  ! 
On  with  the  roe,  and  in  with  Christopher  and 
the  fish.  Now,  Hamish,  hand  us  the  Crutch. 
After  a  cast  or  two,  which,  may  they  be  success- 
ful as  the  night  is  auspicious,  your  presence, 
gentlemen,  will  be  expected  in  the  Tent.  Now, 
Hamish,  handle  thou  the  ribbons — alias  the 
hair-tether — and  we  will  touch  him  behind, 
should  he  linger,  with  a  weapon  that  might 

"  Create  a  soul  under  the  ribs  of  death." 
Linger!  why  the  lightning  flies  from  his  heels, 
as  he  carries  us  along  a  fine  natural  causeway, 
like  Ossian's  car-borne  heroes.    From  the  size 


and  state  of  the  stones  over  which  we  make 
such  a  clatter,  we  shrewdly  suspect  that  the 
parliamentary  grant  for  destroying  the  old 
Highland  torrent-roads  has  not  extended  its 
ravages  to  Glen-Etive.     O'Bronte, 

"  Like  panting  Time,  toils  after  us  in  vain ;" 

and  the  pointers  are  following  us  by  our  own 
scent,  and  that  of  the  roe,  in  the  distant  dark- 
ness. Pull  up,  Hamish,  pull  up,  or  otherwise 
we  shall  overshoot  our  mark,  and  meet  with 
some  accident  or  other,  perhaps  a  capsize  on 
BachailJe-Etive,  or  the  Black  Mount.  We  had 
no  idea  the  circle  of  greensward  in  front  of  the 
Tent  was  so  spacious.  Why,  there  is  room 
for  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London's  state-coach  to 
turn  with  its  eight  horses,  and  that  enormous 
ass.  Parson  Dillon,  on  the  dickey.  What  could 
have  made  us  think  at  this  moment  of  London] 
Certes,  the  association  of  ideas  is  a  droll  thing, 
and  also  sometimes  most  magnificent.  Dancing 
in  the  Tent,  among  strange  figures  !  Celebra- 
tion of  the  nuptials  of  soiue  Arab  chief,  in  an 
oasis  in  the  Great  Desert  of  Stony  Arabia ! 
Heavens  !  look  at  Tickler !  How  he  hauls  the 
Hizzies  !  There  is  no  time  to  be  lost — he  and 
the  Admiral  must  not  have  all  the  sport  to 
themselves;  and,  by  and  by,  spite  of  age  and 
infirmity,  we  shall  show  the  Tent  a  touch  of 
the  Highland  Fling,  Hollo !  you  landloupers  ! 
Christopher  is  upon  you — behold  the  Tenth 
Avatar  incarnated  in  North. 

But  what  Apparitions  at  the  Tent-door  sa- 
lute our  approach  ] 

"  Back  step  these  two  fair  angels,  half  afraid 
So  suddenly  to  see  the  Griesly  King:" 

Goat-herdesses  from  the  clifi^s  of  Glencreran 
or  Glenco,  kilted  to  the  knee,  and  not  uncon- 
scious of  their  ankles,  one  twinkle  of  which  is 
sufficient  to  bid  "Begone  dull  care"  for  ever. 
One  hand  on  a  shoulder  of  each  of  the  moun- 
tain-nymphs— sweet  liberties — and  theij  em- 
braced by  both,  half  in  their  arms,  and  half 
on  their  bosoms,  was  ever  Old  Man  so  plea- 
santly let  down  from  triumphal  car,  on  the 
soft  surface  of  his  mother-earth  1  Ay,  there 
lies  the  Red-deer!  and  what  heaps  of  smaller 
slain  !  But  was  there  ever  such  a  rush  of 
dogs !  We  shall  be  extinguished.  Down, 
dogs,  down — nay,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  be 
seated — on  one  another's  knees  as  before — we 
beseech  you — we  are  but  men  like  yourselves 
— and 

"  Without  the  smile  from  partial  beauty  won. 
Oh '.  what  were  man  1 — a  world  without  a  sun  1" 

What  it  is  to  be  the  darling  of  gods  and 
men,  and  women  and  children !  Why,  the  ' 
very  stars  burn  brighter — and  thou,  0  Moon ! 
art  like  the  Sun.  We  foresee  a  night  of  danc- 
ing and  drinking — till  the  mountain-dew  melt 
in  the  lustre  of  morn.  Such  a  day  should 
have  a  glorious  death — and  a  glorious  resur 
rection.     Hurra!  Hurra! 

The  Moors  foh  ever  !     The  Moors  !     Thk 
Moors  ! 


k2 


ISO 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


HIGHLAND  SNOT^^-STOEM. 


What  do  you  mean  by  original  genius  1  By 
•,hat  fine  line  in  the  Pleasures  of  Hope — 
"To  muse  on  Nature  with  a  poet's  eye  1" 
Why — genius — one  kind  of  it  at  least — is 
transfusion  of  self  into  all  outward  things. 
The  genius  that  does  that — naturally,  but  no- 
velly — is  original ;  and  now  you  know  the 
meaning  of  one  kind  of  original  genius.  Have 
we,  then,  Christopher  North,  that  gifti  Have 
you  1  Yea,  both  of  Us.  Our  spirits  animate 
the  insensate  earth,  till  she  speaks,  sings, 
smiles,  laughs,  weeps,  sighs,  groans,  goes 
mad,  and  dies.  Nothing  easier,  though  per- 
haps it  is  wicked,  than  for  original  genius  like 
ours,  or  yours,  to  drive  the  earth  to  distraction. 
We  wave  our  wizard  hand  thus — and  lo!  list! 
she  is  insane.  How  she  howls  to  heaven,  and 
how  the  maddened  heaven  howls  back  her 
frenzy!  Two  dreadful  maniacs  raging  apart, 
but  in  communion,  in  one  vast  bedlam  !  The 
drift-snow  spins  hefnre  the  hurricane,  hissing 
like  a  nest  of  serpents  let  loose  to  torment  the 
air.  What  fierce  flakes!  furies!  as  if  all  the 
wasps  thai  ever  stung  had  been  revivified,  and 
were  now  careering  part  and  parcel  of  the 
tempest.  We  are  in  a  Highland  Hut  in  the 
midst  of  mountains.  But  no  land  is  to  be  seen 
any  more  than  if  we  Avcre  in  the  middle  of  the 
sea.  Yet  a  wan  glare  shows  that  the  snow- 
storm is  strangely  shadowed  by  superincum- 
bent clitfs;  and  though  you  cannot  see,  you 
hcnr  the  mountains.  Rendings  are  going  on, 
frequent,  over  your  head — and  all  around  the 
blind  wilderness — the  thunderous  tumblings 
down  of  avalanches,  mixed  with  the  moan- 
ingi,  shriekings,  and  yellings  of  caves,  as  if 
spirits  there  were  angry  with  the  snow-drift 
choking  up  the  fissures  and  chasms  in  the 
clifls.  Is  that  the  creaking  and  gioaning,  and 
rocking  and  tossing  of  old  trees,  afraid  of  be- 
ing uprooted  and  flung  into  the  spate  1 

"lied  comes  tlic  river  down,  and  Iniid  and  oft. 
Tlie  angry  spirit  of  the  water  shrielvs," 

more  fearful  than  at  midnight  in  this  nighllike 
day — whose  meridian  is  a  total  sun  eclipse. 
The  river  runs  by,  bloodlike,  through  the 
snow-  -and,  short  as  is  the  reach  you  can 
see  through  the  flaky  gloom,  that  short  reach 
shows  that  all  his  course  must  be  terrible — 
more  and  more  terrible — as,  gathering  his 
streams  like  a  chieftain  his  clan — erelong  he 
will  sweep  shieling,  and  hut,  and  hamlet  to 
the  sea,  undermining  rocks,  cutting  mounds 
asunder,  and  blowing  up  bridges  that  explode 
into  the  air  with  a  roar  like  that  of  cannon. 
You  sometimes  think  you  hear  thunder,  though 
you  know  that  cannot  be — but  sublimer  than 
thunder  is  the  nameless  noise  so  like  that  of 
agonized  life — that  eddies  far  and  wide  around 
— high  and  huge  above— fear  all  the  while  be- 
ing at  the  bottom  of  your  heart — an  objectless, 
•'•m  dreary,  undefinable  fear,  whose  troubled 


presence — if  any  mortal  feeling  be  so— is 
sublime.  Your  imagination  is  troubled,  and 
dreams  of  death,  but  of  no  single  corpse,  of 
no  single  grave.  Nor  fear  you  for  yourself — 
for  the  Hut  in  which  you  thus  enjoy  the  storm, 
is  safer  than  the  canopied  cliff-calra  of  the 
eagle's  nest ;  but  your  spirit  is  convulsed  from 
its  deepest  and  darkest  foundations,  and  all 
that  lay  hidden  there  of  the  wild  and  wonder- 
ful, the  pitiful  and  the  strange,  the  terrible  and 
pathetic,  is  now  upturned  in  dim  confusion, 
and  imagination,  working  among  the  hoarded 
gatherings  of  the  heart,  creates  out  of  them 
moods  kindred  and  congenial  with  the  hurri- 
cane, intensifying  the  madness  of  the  heaven 
and  the  earth,  till  that  which  sees  and  that 
which  is  seen,  that  which  hears  and  that 
which  is  heard,  undergo  alternate  mutual 
transfiguration  ;  and  the  blind  Roaring  Day — 
at  once  substance,  shadow,  and  soul — is  felt 
to  be  one  with  ourselves — the  blended  whole 
either  the  Live-Dead,  or  the  Dead-Alive. 

We  are  in  a  Highland  Hut — if  we  called  it 
a  Shieling  we  did  so  merely  because  we  love 
the  sound  of  the  word  Shieling,  and  the  image 
it  at  once  brings  to  eye  and  ear — the  rustling 
of  leaves  on  a  summer  silvan  bower,  by  sim- 
ple art  slightly  changed  from  the  form  of  the 
growth  of  nature,  or  the  waving  of  fern  on  the 
turf-roof  and  turf-walls,  all  covered  with  wild- 
flowers  and  mosses,  and  moulded  by  one  sin- 
gle season  into  a  knoll-like  beauty,  beside  its 
guardian  birch-tree,  insupportable  to  all  evil 
spirits,  but  with  its  silvery  stem  and  drooping 
tresses  dear  to  the  Silent  People  that  won  in 
the  land  of  peace.  Truly  this  is  not  the  sweet 
Shieling-season,  when,  far  away  from  &11  other 
human  dwellings,  on  the  dip  of  some  great 
mountain,  quite  at  the  head  of  a  day's-journey- 
long  glen,  the  young  herdsman,  haply  all  alf.ne, 
without  one  single  being  with  him  that  has  the 
use  of  speech,  liveth  for  months  retired  far 
from  kirk  and  cross — Luath  his  sole  compa- 
nion— his  sole  care  the  pasturing  heids — the 
sole  sounds  he  hears  the  croak  of  the  laven  on 
the  cliff",  or  bark  of  the  eagle  in  the  sky.  O 
sweet,  solitary  lot  of  lover!  Haply  in  some 
oasis  in  the  wilderness,  some  steadfast  gleam 
of  emerald  light  amid  the  hyacintliine-hue  of 
the  heather,  that  young  herdsman  hath  pitched 
his  tent,  by  one  Good  Spirit  haunted  intrning, 
noon,  and  night,  through  the  sunny,  moonlight, 
starry  months, — the  Orphan-girl,  whom  years 
ago  her  dyins  father  gave  into  his  arms — the 
old  blind  soldier — knowing  that  the  boy  would 
shield  her  innocence  when  every  blood-rela- 
tion had  been  buried — now  Orphan-girl  no 
more,  but  growing  there  like  a  lily  at  the 
Shieling  door,  or  singing  within  sweetlier  than 
any  bird — the  happiest  of  all  living  things— 
her  own  Ronald's  dark-haired  Bride. 

We  are  in  a  Highland  Hut  among  a  High- 
land Snow-storm — and  all  at  once  amidst  the 


HIGHLAND  SNOW-STORM. 


161 


roar  of  the  merciless  hurricane  we  remember 
the  words  of  Burns — the  peerless  Peasant. 
Simple  as  they  are,  with  what  profound  pathos 
are  they  charged ! 

"List'ning  the  doors  an'  winiiocks  rattle  ; 
I  think  nie  on  the  curie  cattle, 
Or  silly  sheep,  wha  bide  this  brattle 

O'  winter  war. 
And  thro'  the  drift,  deep-lairing  sprattle, 

Beneath  a  scaur ! 

"Ilk  happinir  bird,  wee,  helpless  thing. 
That,  in  the  merry  months  o'  spring, 
Delighted  me  to  hear  thee  sins, 

What  comes  o'  thee  f 
Whar  wilt  thou  cow'r  thy  chittering  wing 

An'  close  thy  e'e  1 

"Ev'n  you  on  murdering  errands  toil'd, 

Lone  from  your  savage  homes  exiled,  * 

The  blood-stain'd  roost,  and  sheep-cot  spoil'd, 

My  heart  forgets, 
While  pitiless  the  tempest  wild 

Sore  on  you  beats." 

Burns  is  our  Lowland  bard — but  poetry  is 
poetry  ail  over  the  world,  when  streamed  from 
the  life-blood  of  the  human  heart.  So  sang 
the  Genius  of  inspired  humanity  in  his  bleak 
"  auld  clay-biggin,"  on  one  of  the  braes  of 
Coila,  and  now  our  heart  responds  the  strain, 
high  up  among  the  Celtic  cliffs,  central  among 
a  sea  of  mountains  hidden  in  a  snow-storm 
that  enshrouds  the  day.  Ay — the  one  single 
door  of  this  Hut — the  one  single  "winnock," 
does  "  rallle" — by  fits — as  the  blast  smites  it, 
in  spite  of  the  white  mound  drifted  hill-high  all 
round  the  buried  dwelling.  Dim  through  the 
peat-reek  cower  the  figures  in  tartan — fear  has 
hushed  the  cry  of  the  infant  in  the  swinging 
cradle — and  all  the  other  imps  are  mute.  But 
the  household  is  thinner  than  usual  at  the 
meal-hour;  and  feet  that  loved  to  follow  the 
red-deer  along  the  bent,  now  fearless  of  pit- 
falls, since  the  first  lour  of  morning  light  have 
been  traversing  the  tempest.  The  shepherds, 
who  sit  all  day  long  when  summer  hues  are 
shining,  and  summer  flowerets  are  blowing. 
almost  idle  in  their  plaids,  beneath  the  shadow 
of  some  rock  watching  their  flocks  feeding 
above,  around,  and  below,  now  expose  their 
bold  breasts  to  all  the  perils  of  the  pastoral 
life.  This  is  our  Arcadia — a  realm  of  wrath 
— wo— danger,  and  death.  Here  are  bred  the 
men  whose  blood — when  the  bagpipe  blows — 
is  prodigally  poured  forth  on  a  thousand  shores. 
The  limbs  strung  to  giant-force  by  such  snows 
as  these,  moving  in  line  of  battle  within  the 
shadow  of  the  Pyramids, 

"  Brought  from  the  dust  the  sound  of  liberty," 
■while  the  Invincible  standard  was  lowered  be- 
fore the  heroes  of  the  Old  Black  Watch,  and 
victory  out  of  the  very  heart  of  defeat  arose  on 
"  that  thrice-repeated  cry"  that  quails  all  foes 
that  madly  rush  against  the  banners  of  Albyn. 
The  storm  that  has  frozen  in  his  eyry  the  eagle's 
wing,  driven  the  deer  to  the  comb  beneath  the 
cliffs,  and  all  night  imprisoned  the  wild-cat  in 
his  cell,  hand  in  hand  as  is  their  wont  when 
crossing  a  stream  or  flood,  bands  of  Highland- 
ers now  f:ice  ill  its  strongholds  all  over  the 
ranges  of  mountains,  come  it  from  the  wrath- 
ful inland  or  the  more  wrathful  sea. 

"They  think  upon  the  ourie  cattle 
And  silly  sheep," 

and  man's  reason  goes  to  the  help  of  brute  in- 
stinct. 


How  passing  sweet   is   that   other  stanza, 
heard  like  a  low  hymn  amidst  the  noise  of  the 
tempest !    Let  our  hearts  once  more  recite  it — 
"  Ilk  happing  bird,  wee,  helpless  thing. 
That,  in  the  merry  months  o'  spring. 
Delighted  me  to  hear  thee  sing. 
What  comes  o'  thee  f 
Whar  wilt  thou  cow'r  thy  chittering  wing. 
An'  close  thy  e'e  V 

The  whole  earth  is  for  a  moment  green 
again — trees  whisper — streamlets  murmur — 
and  the  "  merry  month  o'  spring"  is  musical 
through  all  her  groves.  But  in  another  mo- 
ment we  know  that  almost  all  those  sweet- 
singers  are  now  dead — or  that  they  "  cow'r  the 
chittering  wing" — never  more  to  flutter  through 
the  woodlands,  and  "close  the  e'e"  that  shall 
never  more  be  reillumined  with  love,  when 
the  Season  of  Nests  is  at  hand,  and  bush,  tree, 
and  tower  are  again  all  a-twitler  with  the  sur- 
vivors of  some  gentler  climate. 

The  poet's  heart,  humanized  to  utmost  ten- 
derness by  the  beauty  of  its  own  merciful 
thoughts,  extends  its  pity  to  the  poor  beasts  of 
prey.  Each  syllable  tells — each  stroke  of  the 
poet-painter's  pencil  depicts  the  life  and  suf- 
ferings of  the  wretched  creatures.  And  then, 
feeling  that  such  an  hour  all  life  is  subject  to 
one  lot,  how  profound  the  pathos  reflected  back 
upon  our  own  selves  and  our  mortal  condition, 
by  these  few  simplest  words — 

"  My  heart  forgets, 
While  pitiless  the  tempest  wild 
Sore  on  you  beats!" 

They  go  to  help  the  "ourie  cattle"  and  the 
"  silly  sheep ;"  but  who  knows  that  they  are 
not  sent  on  an  errand  of  higher  mercy,  by  Him 
whose  ear  has  not  been  shut  to  the  prayer  al- 
most frozen  on  the  lips  of  them  about  to 
perish  ! — an  incident  long  forgotten,  though  on 
the  eve  of  that  day  on  which  the  deliverance 
happened,  so  passionately  did  we  all  regard  it, 
that  we  felt  that  interference  providential — as 
if  we  had  indeed  seen  the  hand  of  God  stretch- 
ed down  through  the  mist  and  snow  from 
heaven.  We  all  said  that  it  would  never  leave 
our  memory;  yet  all  of  us  soon  forgot  it — but 
now  while  the  tempest  howls,  it  seems  again 
of  yesterday. 

One  family  lived  in  Glencreran,  and  another 
in  Glenco — the  families  of  two  brothers — sel- 
dom visiting  each  other  on  working-days — 
seldom  meeting  even  on  Sabbaths,  for  theirs 
was  not  the  same  parish-kirk — seldom  coming 
together  on  rural  festivals  or  hol)'days,  for  in 
the  Highlands  now  these  are  not  so  frequent 
as  of  yore  ;  yet  all  these  sweet  seldoms,  taken 
together,  to  loving  hearts  made  a  happy  many, 
and  thus,  though  each  family  passed  its  life  in 
its  own  home,  there  were  many  invisible 
threads  stretched  out  through  the  intermediate 
air,  connecting  the  two  dwellings  together — 
as  the  gossamer  keeps  floating  from  one  tree 
to  another,  each  with  its  own  secret  nest. 
And  nestlike  both  dwellings  were.  Thnt  iu 
Glenco,  built  beneath  a  treeless  but  high- 
heathered  rock — lown  in  all  storms — with 
greensward  and  garden  on  a  slope  down  to  a 
rivulet,  the  clearest  of  the  clear,  (oh!  once 
wofully  reddened  !)  and  growing — so  it  seems 
in  the  mosses  of  its  own  roof,  and  the  huge 
stones  that  overshadow  it — out  of  the  earth 


152 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


That  in  Glencreran,  more  conspicuous,  on  a 
knoll  among  the  pastoral  meadows,  midway 
between  mountain  and  mountain,  so  that  the 
grove  which  shelters  it,  except  when  the  sun 
is  shining  high,  is  darkened  by  their  meeting 
^hadows,  and  dark  indeed  even  in  the  sunshine, 
for  'tis  a  low  but  wide-armed  grove  of  old  oak- 
like pines.  A  little  further  down,  and  Glen- 
creran is  very  silvan  ;  but  this  dwellin*?  is  the 
highest  up  of  all,  the  first  you  descend  upon, 
near  the  foot  of  that  wild  hanging  staircase 
between  you  and  Glen-Etive;  and  except  this 
old  oaklike  grove  of  pines,  there  is  not  a  tree, 
and  hardly  a  bush,  on  bank  or  brae,  pasture 
or  hay-field,  though  these  are  kept  by  many  a 
rill  there  mingling  themselves  into  one  stream, 
in  a  perpetual  lustre,  that  seems  to  be  as  na- 
tive to  the  grass  as  its  light  is  In  the  glow- 
worm. Such  are  the  »wo  Huts — for  they  are 
};uts  and  no  more — and  you  may  see  them  still, 
if  you  know  how  to  discover  the  beautiful 
.eights  of  nature  from  descriptions  treasured  in 
your  heart — and  if  the  spirit  of  change,  now 
nowhere  at  rest  on  the  earth,  not  even  in  its 
most  solitary  places,  have  not  swept  from  the 
scenes  they  beautified  the  humble  but  heredi- 
tary dwellings  that  ought  to  be  allowed,  in  the 
fulness  of  the  quiet  time,  to  relapse  back  into 
the  bosom  of  nature,  through  insensible  and 
unpcrceivcd  decay. 

'i'hese  Huts  belonged  to  brothers — and  each 
had  an  only  child — a  son  and  a  daughter — 
born  on  the  same  day — and  now  blooming  on 
the  verge  of  youth.  A  year  ago,  and  they 
were  but  mere  children — but  what  wondrous 
growth  of  frame  and  spirit  does  nature  at  that 
season  of  life  often  present  before  our  eyes  ! 
So  that  we  almost  see  the  very  change  going 
on  between  morn  and  morn,  and  feel  that 
these  objects  of  our  affection  are  daily  brought 
closer  to  ourselves,  by  i)artaking  daily  more 
and  more  in  all  our  most  sacred  thoughts,  in  our 
cares  and  in  our  duties,  and  in  knowledge  of 
the  sorrows  as  well  as  the  joys  of  our  common 
lot.  Thus  had  these  cousins  grown  up  he- 
fore  their  parent's  eyes.  Flora  Macdonald — a 
name  hallowed  of  yore — the  fairest,  and  Ra- 
nald Cameron,  the  boldest  of  all  the  living 
lldwers  in  Glenco  and  Glencreran.  It  was  now 
their  seventeenth  birthday,  and  never  had  a 
winter  sun  smiled  more  serenely  over  a  hush 
of  snow.  Flora,  it  had  been  agreed  on,  was  to 
pass  'hat  day  in  Glencreran,  and  Ranald  to 
meet  her  among  the  mountains,  that  he  might 
bring  her  down  the  many  precipitous  passes 
to  his  parent's  hut.  It  was  the  middle  of 
February,  and  the  snow  had  lain  for  weeks 
with  all  its  driAs  unchanged,  so  calm  had  been 
the  weather,  and  so  contmued  the  frost.  .\t 
the  same  hour,  known  by  horologe  on  the  clifl' 
touched  by  the  finger  of  dawn,  the  happy  crea- 
tures left  each  tlieir  own  glen,  and  mile  after 
mile  of  the  smooth  surface  glided  away  past 
their  feet,  almost  as  the  quiet  water  glides  by 
the  little  boat  that  in  favouring  breezes  walks 
merrily  along  the  sea.  .\nd  soon  they  met 
at  the  trysting-place — a  bank  of  birch-trees 
beneath  a  cliff  that  takes  its  name  from  the 
Eagles. 

On  their  meeting  seemed  not  to  them  the 
■whole  of  nature  suddenly  inspired  with  joy 


and  beauty  1  Insects  unheard  by  them  before, 
hummed  and  glittered  in  the  air — from  tree- 
roots,  where  the  snow  was  thin,  little  flowers, 
or  herbs  flower-like,  now  for  the  first  time  were 
seen  looking  out  as  if  alive — the  trees  them- 
selves seemed  budding  as  if  it  were  already 
spring — and  rare  as  in  that  rocky  region  are 
the  birds  of  song,  a  faint  trill  for  a  moment 
touched  their  ears,  and  the  flutter  of  a  wing, 
telling  them  that  somewhere  near  there  was 
preparation  for  a  nest.  Deep  down  beneath 
the  snow  they  listened  to  the  tinkle  of  rills 
unreached  by  the  frost — and  merry,  thought 
they,  was  the  music  of  these  contented  prison- 
ers. Not  summer's  self,  in  its  deepest  green, 
so  beautiful  had  ever  been  to  them  before,  as 
now  the  mild  white  of  Winter;  and  as  their 
eyes  were  lifted  up  to  heaven,  when  had  they 
ever  seen  before  a  sky  of  such  perfect  blue,  a 
sun  so  g«'ntle  in  its  brightness,  or  altogether  a 
week-<lay  in  any  season  so  like  a  Sabbath  in 
its  stillness,  so  like  a  holyday  in  its  joy! 
Lovers  were  they — although  as  yet  they 
scarcely  knew  it;  for  from  love  only  could 
have  come  such  bliss  as  now  was  theirs,  a 
bliss  that  while  it  beautified  was  felt  to  come 
from  the  skies. 

Flora  sang  to  Ranald  many  of  her  old  songs 
to  those  wild  Gaelic  airs  that  sound  like  the 
sighinc:  of  winds  among  fractured  clifls,  or  the 
branches  of  storm-tossed  trees  when  the  sub- 
siding tempest  is  about  to  let  them  rest.  Mo- 
notonous music !  but  irresistible  over  the  heart 
it  has  once  awakened  and  enthralled,  so  sin- 
cere seems  to  be  the  mournfulness  it  breathes 
— a  mournfulness  brooding  on  the  same  note 
that  is  at  once  its  natural  expression  and  its 
sweetest  aliment — of  which  the  singer  never 
wearielh  in  her  dream,  while  her  h'-art  all  the 
time  is  haunted  by  all  that  is  most  piteous,  by 
the  faces  of  the  dead  in  their  paleness  return- 
ing to  the  shades  of  life,  only  that  once  more 
they  may  p<iur  from  their  fixed  eyes  those 
strange  showers  of  unaccountable  fears! 

How  merry  were  they  between  those  mourn- 
ful airs!  How  Flora  trembled  to  see  her 
lover's  burning  brow  and  flashing  eyes,  as  he 
told  her  tales  of  great  battles  fought  in  foreign 
lands,  far  across  the  sea — tales  which  he  had 
drunk  in  with  greedy  ears  from  the  old  heroes 
scattered  all  o\er  Lochaber  and  Badenoch,  on 
the  brink  of  the  grave  still  garrulous  of  blood  ! 

"The  sun  sat  liigti  in  hia  mcridiaD  tower," 

but  time  had  not  been  with  the  youthful  lovers, 
and  the  blessed  beings  believed  that  'twas  but 
a  little  hour  since  beneath  the  Eagle  Cliff  ihey 
had  met  in  the  prime  of  the  morn  I 

The  boy  starts  to  his  fiet — and  his  keen  eye 
loolvs  along  the  ready  rifle — for  his  sires  had 
all  been  famous  deer-stalkers,  and  the  passion 
of  the  chase  was  hereditary  in  his  blood.  Lo! 
a  deer  from  Dalness,  hound-driven  or  sullenly 
astray,  slowly  bearing  his  antlers  up  the  glen, 
then  stopping  fur  a  moment  to  snuff  the  air, 
and  then  away — away !  The  rifle-shot  rings 
dully  from  the  scarce  echoing  snow<lifls,  and 
the  animal  leaps  aloft,  struck  by  a  certain  but 
not  sudden  death-wound.  Oh!  for  Fincral  now 
to  pull  him  down  like  a  wolf!  But  labouring 
and  lumbering  heavily  along,  the  snow  spotted 


HIGHLAND  SNOW-STORM. 


163 


as  he  bounds  with  blood,  the  huge  animal  at 
last  disappears  round  some  rocks  at  the  head 
of  the  glen.  "Follow  me,  Flora!"  the  bo)-- 
hunter  cries — and  flinging  down  their  plaids, 
they  turn  their  bright  faces  to  the  mountain, 
and  away  up  the  long  glen  after  the  stricken 
deer.  Fleet  was  the  mountain-girl — and  Ra- 
nald, as  he  ever  and  anon  looked  back  to  wave 
her  on,  with  pride  admired  her  lightsome  mo- 
tion as  she  bounded  along  the  snow.  Redder 
and  redder  grew  that  snow,  and  more  heavil)- 
trampled  as  they  winded  round  the  rocks. 
Yonder  is  the  deer  staggering  up  the  mountain, 
not  half  a  mile  off — now  standing  at  bay,  as  if 
before  his  swimming  eyes  came  Fingal,  the 
terror  of  the  forest,  whose  howl  was  known  to 
all  the  echoes,  and  quailed  the  herd  while  their 
antlers  were  yet  afar  off.  "  Rest,  Flora !  rest ! 
while  I  lly  to  him  with  my  rifle — and  shoot  him 
through  the  heart !" 

Up — up — up  the  interminable  glen,  that  kept 
■winding  and  winding  round  many  a  jutting 
promontory,  and  many  a  castellated  cliff,  the 
red-deer  kept  dragging  his  gore-oozing  bulk, 
sometimes  almost  within,  and  then,  for  some 
hundreds  of  yards,  just  beyond  rifle-shot ;  while 
the  boy,  maddened  by  the  chase,  pressed  for- 
wards, now  all  alone,  nor  any  more  looking 
behind  for  Flora,  who  had  entirely  disappeared; 
and  thus  he  was  hurried  on  for  miles  by  the 
whirlwind  of  passion — till  at  last  he  struck  the 
noble  quarry,  and  down  sank  the  antlers  in  the 
snow,  while  the  air  was  spurned  by  the  con- 
vulsive beatings  of  feet.  Then  leaped  Ranald 
upon  the  Red-deer  like  a  beast  of  prey,  and  lift- 
ed up  a  look  of  triumph  to  the  mountain  tops. 

Where  is  Floral  Her  lover  has  forgotten 
her — and  he  is  alone — nor  knows  it — he  and 
the  Red-deer — an  enormous  animal — fast  stif- 
fening in  the  frost  of  death. 

Some  large  flakes  of  snow  are  in  the  air,  arsd 
they  seem  to  waver  and  whirl,  though  an  hour 
ago  there  was  not  a  breath.  Faster  they  fall  and 
faster — the  flakes  are  almost  as  large  as  leaves 
— and  overhead  whence  so  suddenly  has  come 
that  huge  yellow  cloud?  "Flora,  where  are 
you?  where  are  you.  Flora?"  and  from  the  huge 
hide  the  boy  leaps  up,  and  sees  that  no  Flora  is 
at  hand.  But  yonder  is  a  moving  speck  far  off 
upon  the  snow  !  'Tis  she — 'tis  she — and  again 
Ranald  turns  his  eyes  upon  the  quarry,  and  the 
heart  of  the  hunter  burns  within  him  like  a  new- 
stirred  fire.  Shrill  as  the  eagle's  cry  disturbed 
in  his  eyry,  he  sends  a  shout  down  the  glen — 
and  Flora,  with  cheeks  pale  and  bright  by  fits, 
is  at  last  at  his  side.  Panting  and  speechless 
she  stands — and  then  dizzily  sinks  on  his 
breast.  Her  hair  is  ruffled  by  the  wind  that 
revives  her,  and  her  face  all  moistened  by  the 
snow-flakes,  now  not  falling  but  driven — for  the 
day  has  undergone  a  dismal  change,  and  all 
over  the  skies  are  now  lowering  savage  symp- 
toms of  a  fast-coming  night-storm. 

Bare  is  poor  Flora's  head,  and  sadly  drenched 
lier  hair,  that  an  hour  or  two  ago  glittered  in 
the  sunshine.  Her  shivering  frame  misses 
now  the  warmth  of  the  plaid,  which  almost  no 
cold  can  penetrate,  and  Mhich  had  kept  the 
vital  current  flowing  freely  in  many  a  bitter 
blast.  What  would  the  miserable  boy  give 
now  for  the  coverings  lying  far  away,  which,  in 
20 


his  foolish  passion,  he  flung  down  to  chase  that 
fatal  deer!  "Oh!  Flora!  if  you  would  not 
fear  to  stay  here  by  yourself— under  the  pro- 
tection of  God,  who  surely  will  not  forsake  you 
— soon  will  I  go  and  come  from  the  place 
where  our  plaids  are  lying;  and  under  the 
shelter  of  the  deer  we  may  be  able  to  outlive 
the  hurricane — you  wrapt  up  in  them — and 
folded — O  my  dearest  sister — in  my  arms  !" 
— "I  will  go  with  you  down  the  glen,  Ranald!" 
and  she  left  his  breast — but,  weak  as  a  day-old 
lamb,  tottered  and  sank  down  on  the  snow. 
The  cold — intense  as  if  the  air  were  ice — had 
chilled  her  very  heart,  after  the  heat  of  that 
long  race ;  and  it  was  manifest  that  here  she 
must  be  for  the  night — to  live  or  to  die.  And 
the  night  seemed  already  come,  so  full  was  the 
lift  of  snow;  while  the  glimmer  every  moment 
became  gloomier,  as  if  the  day  were  expiring 
long  before  its  time.  Howling  at  a  distance 
down  the  glen  was  heard  a  sea-born  tempest 
from  the  Linnhe-Loch,  where  now  they  both 
knew  the  tide  was  tumbling  in,  bringing  with 
it  sleet  and  snow  blasts  from  afar;  and  from 
the  opposite  quarter  of  the  sky,  an  inland  tem- 
pest was  raging  to  meet  it,  while  every  lesser 
glen  had  its  own  uproar,  so  that  on  all  hands 
they  were  environed  with  death. 

"  I  will  go — and,  till  I  return,  leave  you  with 
God." — "Go,  Ranald!"  and  he  went  and  came 
— as  if  he  had  been  endowed  with  the  raven's 
wings ! 

Miles  away — and  miles  back  had  he  flown 
— and  an  hour  had  not  been  with  his  going 
and  his  coming — but  what  a  dreary  wretched- 
ness meanwhile  had  been  hers !  She  feared 
that  she  was  dying — that  the  cold  snow-storm 
was  killing  her — and  that  she  would  never 
more  see  Ranald,  to  say  to  him  farewell.  Soon 
as  he  was  gone,  all  her  courage  had  died. 
Alone,  she  feared  death,  and  wept  to  think  how 
hard  it  was  for  one  so  young  thus  miserably 
to  die.  He  came — and  her  whole  being  was 
changed.  Folded  up  in  both  the  plaids — she 
felt  resigned.  "Oh!  kiss  me — kiss  me,  Ra- 
nald— for  your  love — great  as  it  is — is  not  as 
my  love.  You  must  never  forget  me,  Ranald 
— when  your  poor  Flora  is  dead." 

Religion  with  these  two  young  creatures 
was  as  clear  as  the  light  of  the  Sabbath-day — 
and  their  belief  in  heaven  just  the  same  as  in 
earth.  The  will  of  God  they  thought  of  just 
as  they  thought  of  their  parents'  will — and  the 
same  was  their  loving  obedience  to  its  decrees. 
If  she  was  to  die — supported  now  by  the  pre- 
sence of  her  brother — Flora  was  utterly  re- 
signed; if  she  were  to  live,  her  heart  imaged 
to  itself  the  very  forms  of  her  grateful  wor- 
ship. But  all  at  once  she  closed  her  eyes — 
ceased  breathing — and,  as  the  tempest  luvvled 
and  rumbled  in  the  gloom  that  fell  ai.)und 
them  like  blindness,  Ranald  almost  sank  down, 
thinking  that  she  was  dead. 

"  Wretched  sinner  that  I  am ! — my  wicked 
madness  brought  her  here  to  die  of  cold!" 
And  he  smote  his  breast — and  tore  his  hair— 
and  feared  to  look  up,  lest  the  angry  eye  of 
God  were  looking  on  him  through  the  storm. 

All  at  once,  Avithout  speaking  a  word,  Ra- 
nald lifted  Flora  in  his  arms,  and  walked  away 
up  the  glen — here  almost  narrowed  into  a 


154 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


pass.  Distraction  gave  him  supernatural 
strength,  and  her  M^eight  seemed  that  of  a  child. 
Some  walls  of  what  had  once  been  a  house,  he 
had  suddenly  remembered,  were  but  a  short 
\va)'  off — whether  or  not  they  had  any  roof,  he 
had  forgotten  ;  but  the  thought  even  of  such 
shelter  seemed  a  thought  of  salvation.  There 
it  was — a  snow-drift  at  the  opening  that  had 
once  been  a  door — snow  up  the  holes  once 
windows — the  wood  of  the  roof  had  been  car- 
ried off  for  fuel,  and  the  snow-flakes  were 
falling  in,  as  if  they  would  soon  fill  up  the 
inside  of  the  ruin.  The  snow  in  front  was  all 
trampled  as  if  by  sheep;  and  carrying  in  his 
burden  under  the  low  lintel,  he  saw  the  place 
was  filled  with  a  flock  that  had  foreknown  the 
hurricane,  and  tliat  all  huddled  together  looked 
on  him  as  on  the  shepherd  come  to  see  how 
they  were  faring  in  the  storm. 

And  a  young  shepherd  he  was,  with  a  lamb 
apparently  dying  in  his  arms.  All  colour — all 
motion — all  breath  seemed  to  be  gone — and  yet 
something  convinced  his  heart  that  she  was 
yet  alive.  The  ruined  hut  was  roofless,  but 
across  an  angle  of  the  walls  some  pine- 
branches  had  been  flung  as  a  sort  of  sheftcr 
for  the  sheep  or  cattle  that  might  repair  thither 
in  cruel  weather — some  pine-branches  left  by 
the  woodcutters  who  had  felled  the  few  trees 
that  once  stood  at  the  very  head  of  the  glen. 
Into  that  corner  the  snow-drift  had  not  yet 
forced  its  way,  and  he  sat  doAvn  there  with 
Flora  in  the  chcrishiiig  of  his  einhracc,  hoping 
that  the  warmth  of  his  distracted  heart  might 
be  felt  by  her  who  was  as  cold  as  a  corpse. 
The  chill  air  was  somewhat  softened  by  the 
breath  of  the  huddled  flock,  and  the  edge  of  the 
cutting  wind  blunted  by  the  stones.  It  was  a 
place  in  which  it  seemed  possible  that  she 
might  revive — miserable  as  it  was  with  mirc- 
mixcd  snow — and  almost  as  cold  as  one  sup- 
poses the  grave.  And  she  did  revive — and 
under  the  half-open  lids  the  dim  blue  appeared 
to  be  not  yet  life-deserted.  It  was  yet  but  the 
afternoon — nightlike  though  it  was — and  he 
thought,  as  he  breathed  upon  her  lips,  that  a 
faint  red  returned,  and  that  they  felt  the  kisses 
he  dropt  on  them  to  drive  death  away. 

"Oh!  father,  go  seek  for  Ranald,  for  I 
dreamt  to-night  he  was  perishing  in  the 
snow!" — "Flora,  fear  not — God  is  with  us." 
— "Wild  swans,  they  say,  are  come  to  Loch- 
Phoil — let  us  go,  Ranald,  and  see  them — but 
no  rifle; — for  why  kill  creatures  said  to  be  so 
beautiful  1"  Over  them  where  they  lay,  bended 
down  the  pine-branch  roof,  as  if  it  would  give 
way  beneath  the  increasing  weight ; — but  there 
it  still  hung — though  the  drift  came  over  their 
feet  and  up  to  their  knees,  and  seemed  stealing 
upwards  to  be  their  shroud.  "  Oh  !  I  am  over- 
come with  drowsiness,  and  fain  would  be 
allowed  to  sleep.  Who  is  disturbing  me — and 
what  noise  is  this  in  our  house  I" — "  Fear  not 
— fear  not,  Flora — God  is  with  us." — "  Mother ! 
am  I  lying  in  your  arms?  My  father  surely 
is  not  in  the  storm  !  Oh  !  I  have  had  a  most 
dreadful  dream  !"  and  with  such  mutterings  as 
these  Flora  relapsed  again  into  that  perilous 
sleep — which  soon  becomes  that  of  death. 

Night  itself  came — but  Flora  and  Ranald 
knew  it  not — and  both  lay  now  motionless  in 


one  snow-shroud.  Many  passions — though 
earth-born,  heavenly  all — pity,  and  grief,  and 
love,  and  hope,  and  at  last  despair — had  pros- 
trated the  strength  they  had  so  long  supported; 
and  the  brave  boy — who  had  been  for  some 
time  feeble  as  a  very  child  after  a  fever — with 
a  mind  confused  and  wandering,  and  in  its 
perplexities  sore  afraid  of  some  nameless  ill, 
had  submitted  to  lay  down  his  head  beside  his 
Flora's,  and  had  soon  become  like  her  insen- 
sible to  the  night  and  all  its  storms  ! 

Bright  was  the  peal-fire  in  the  hut  of  Flora's 
parents  in  Glenco — and  they  were  among  the 
happiest  of  the  humble  happy,  blessing  this 
the  birthday  of  their  blameless  child.  They 
thought  of  her  singing  her  sweet  songs  by  the 
fireside  of  the  hut  in  Glencreran — and  tender 
thoughts  of  her  cousin  Ranald  were  with  them 
in  their  prayers.  No  warning  came  to  their 
ears  in  the  sugh  or  the  howl ;  for  Fear  it  is 
that  creates  its  own  ghosts,  and  all  its  own 
ghostlike  visitings,  and  they  had  seen  their 
Flora  in  the  meekness  of  the  morning,  setting 
forth  on  her  way  over  the  quiet  mountains, 
like  a  fawn  to  play.  Sometimes,  loo,  Love,  who 
starts  at  shadows  as  if  they  were  of  the  grave, 
is  strangely  insensible  to  realities  ihat  might 
well  inspire  dismay.  So  was  it  now  with  the 
dwellers  in  the  hut  at  the  head  of  Glencreran. 
Their  Ranald  had  left  them  in  the  morning — 
night  had  come,  and  he  and  Flora  were  not 
there — but  the  day  had  been  almost  like  a  sum- 
mer-day, and  in  their  infatuation  they  never 
doubted  that  the  happy  creatures  had  changed 
their  minds,  and  that  Flora  had  returned  with 
him  to  Glenco.  Ranald  had  laughingly  said, 
that  haply  he  might  surprise  the  people  in  that 
glen  by  bringing  back  to  them  Flora  on  her 
birthday — and  strange  though  it  afterwards 
seemed  to  her  to  be,  that  belief  prevented  one 
single  fear  from  touching  his  mother's  heart, 
and  she  and  her  husband  that  night  lay  down 
in  untroubled  sleep. 

And  what  could  have  been  done  for  them, 
had  they  been  told  by  some  good  or  evil  spirit 
that  their  children  were  in  the  clutches  of  such 
a  night  1  As  well  seek  for  a  single  bark  in  the 
middle  of  the  misty  main  !  But  the  inland 
storm  had  been  seen  brewing  among  the  moun- 
tains round  King's  House,  and  hut  had  com- 
municated with  hut,  though  far  apart  in  re- 
gions where  the  traveller  sees  no  symptoms  of 
human  life.  Down  through  the  long  clifl^-pass 
of  Mealanumy,  between  Buchael-Etive  and 
the  Black-Mount,  towards  the  lone  House  of 
Dalness,  that  lives  in  everlasting  shadows, 
went  a  band  of  shepherds,  trampling  their 
way  across  a  hundred  frozen  streams'.  Dalness 
joined  its  strength — and  then  away  over  the 
drift-bridged  chasms  toiled  that  Gathering,  with 
their  sheep-dogs  scouring  the  loose  snows — in 
the  van,  Fingal  the  Red  Reaver,  with  his  head 
aloft  on  the  look-out  for  deer,  grimly  eyeing 
the  Correi  where  last  he  tasted  blood.  All 
"  plaided  in  their  tartan  array,"  these  shepherds 
laughed  at  the  storm — and  liark  !  you  hear  the 
bag-pipe  play — the  music  the  Highlanders  love 
both  in  war  and  in  peace. 

"They  think  then  of  the  ourie  cattle, 
And  silly  sheep;" 

and  though  they  ken  'twill  be  a  moonless  night 


HIGHLAND  SNOW-STORM. 


155 


— for  the  snow-storm  will  sweep  her  out  of 
heaven — up  the  mountain  and  down  the  glen 
they  go,  marking  where  flock  and  herd  have 
betaken  themselves,  and  now,  at  night-fall,  un- 
afraid of  that  blind  hollow,  they  descend  into 
the  depth  where  once  stood  the  old  Grove  of 
Pines.  Following  the  dogs,  who  know  their 
duties  in  their  instinct,  the  band,  without  see- 
ing it,  are  now  close  to  that  ruined  hut.  Why 
bark  the  sheep-dogs  so — and  why  howls  Fingal, 
as  if  some  spirit  passed  athwart  the  night  1 
He  scents  the  dead  body  of  the  boy  who  so 
often  had  shouted  him  on  in  the  forest,  when 
the  antlers  went  by!  Not  dead — nor  dead  she 
who  is  on  his  bosom.  Yet  life  in  both  is  frozen 
— and  will  the  iced  blood  in  their  veins  ever 
again  be  thawed  1  Almost  pitch-dark  is  the 
roofless  ruin — and  the  frightened  sheep  know 
not  what  is  the  terrible  Shape  that  is  howling 
there.  But  a  man  enters,  and  lifts  up  one  of 
the  bodies,  giving  it  into  the  arms  of  them  at 
the  doorway — and  then  lifts  up  the  other;  and, 
by  the  flash  of  a  rifle,  they  see  that  it  is  Ranald 
Cameron  and  Flora  Macdonald,  seemingly 
both  frozen  to  death.  Some  of  those  reeds 
that  the  shepherds  burn  in  their  huts  are  kin- 
dled, and  in  that  small  light  they  are  assured 
that  such  are  the  corpses.  But  that  noble  dog 
knows  that  death  is  not  there — and  licks  the 
face  of  Ranald,  as  if  he  would  restore  life  to 
his  eyes.  Two  of  the  shepherds  know  well 
how  to  fold  the  dying  in  their  plaids — how 
genlliest  to  carry  them  along;  for  they  had 
learnt  it  on  the  field  of  victorious  battle,  when, 
without  stumbling  over  the  dead  and  wounded, 
they  bore  away  the  shattered  body — yet  living 
—of  the  youthful  warrior,  who  had  shown  that 
of  such  a  Clan  he  was  worthy  to  be  the  Chief. 
The  storm  was  with  them  all  the  way  down 
the  glen — nor  could  they  have  heard  each 
other's  voices  had  they  spoke — but  mutely  they 
shifted  the  burden  from  strong  hand  to  hand — 
thinking  of  the  Hut  in  Glenco,  and  of  what 
would  be  felt  there  on  their  arrival  with  the 
dying  or  dead.  Blind  people  walk  through 
what  to  them  is  the  night  of  crowded  day- 
streets — unpausing  turn  round  corners — un- 
hesitatingly plunge  down  steep  stairs — wind 
their  way  fearlessly  through  whirlwinds  of  life 
— and  reach  in  their  serenity,  each  one  un- 
harmed, his  own  obscure  house.  For  God  is 
with  the  blind.  So  is  he  with  all  who  walk  on 
works  of  mercy.  This  saving  band  had  no 
fear — and  therefore  there  was  no  danger — on 
the  edge  of  the  pitfall  or  the  cliflf.  They  knew 
the  countenances  of  the  mountains  shown  mo- 
mentarily by  ghastly  gleamings  through  the 
fitful  night,  and  the  hollow  sound  of  each  par- 
ticular stream  beneath  the  snow  at  places 
where  in  other  weather  there  was  a  pool  or  a 
waterfall.  The  dip  of  the  hills,  in  spite  of  the 
drifts,  familiar  to  their  feet,  did  not  deceive 
them  now;  and  then,  the  dogs  in  their  instinct 
were  guides  that  erred  not,  and  as  well  as  the 
shepherds  knew  it  themselves  did  Fingal  know 
that  they  were  anxious  to  reach  Glenco.  He 
led  the  way,  as  if  he  were  in  moonlight;  and 
often  stood  still  when  they  were  shifting  their 
burden,  and  whined  as  if  in  grief.  He  knew 
where  the  bridges  were — stones  or  logs  ;  and 
he  rounded  the  marshes  where  at  springs  the  I 


wild-fowl  feed.  And  thus  Instinct,  and  Reason, 
and  Faith  conducted  the  saving  band  along — 
and  now  they  are  at  Glenco — and  at  the  door 
of  the  Hut. 

To  life  were  brought  the  dead ;  and  there  at 
midnight  sat  they  up  like  ghosts.  Strange 
seemed  they — for  a  while — to  each  other's 
eyes — and  at  each  other  they  looked  as  if  they 
had  forgotten  how  dearly  once  they  loved. 
Then  as  if  in  holy  fear  they  gazed  on  each 
other's  faces,  thinking  that  they  had  awoke 
together  in  heaven.  "Flora!"  said  Ranald — 
and  that  sweet  word,  the  first  he  had  beea 
able  to  speak,  reminded  him  of  all  that  had 
passed,  and  he  knew  that  the  God  in  whom 
they  had  put  their  trust  had  sent  them  deliver- 
ance. Flora,  too,  knew  her  parents,  who  were 
on  their  knees — and  she  strove  to  rise  up  and 
kneel  down  beside  them — but  she  was  power- 
less as  a  broken  reed — and  when  she  thought 
to  join  them  in  thanksgiving,  her  voice  was 
gone.  Still  as  death  sat  all  the  people  in  the 
hut — and  one  or  two  who  were  fathers  were 
not  ashamed  to  weep. 

Who  were  they — the  solitary  pair — all  alone 
by  themselves  save  a  small  image  of  her  on 
whose  breast  it  lay — whom — seven  summers 
after — we  came  upon  in  our  wanderings,  be- 
fore their  Shieling  in  Correi-Vollach  at  the  foot 
of  Ben  Chrulas,  who  sees  his  shadow  in  a  hun- 
dred lochs'?     Who  but  Ranald  and  Flora ! 

****** 

Nay,  dry  up — Daughter  of  our  Age,  dry  up 
thy  tears !  and  we  shall  set  a  vision  before 
thine  eyes  to  fill  them  with  unmoistened  light. 

Oft  before  have  those  woods  and  waters — 
those  clouds  and  mountains — {hat  sun  and  sky, 
held  thy  spirit  in  Elysium, — thy  spirit,  that  then 
was  disembodied,  and  living  in  the  beauty  and 
the  glory  of  the  elements.  'Tis  Winderimere 
— WisnERMERE !  Never  canst  thou  have  for- 
gotten those  more  than  fortunate — those  thrice- 
blessed  Isles  !  But  when  last  we  saw  them 
within  the  still  heaven  of  thy  smiling  eyes, 
summer  suns  had  overloaded  them  with  beauty, 
and  they  stooped  their  flowers  and  foliage  down 
to  the  blushing,  the  burning  deep,  that  glowed 
in  its  transparency  with  other  groves  as  gorge- 
ous as  themselves,  the  whole  mingling  mass 
of  reality  and  of  shadow  forming  one  creation. 
But  now,  lo !  Windermere  in  Winter.  All 
leafless  now  the  groves  that  girdled  her  as  if 
shifting  rainbows  were  in  love  perpetually  let- 
ting fall  their  colours  on  the  Queen  of  Lakes. 
Gone  now  are  her  banks  of  emerald  that  car- 
ried our  calm  gazings  with  them,  sloping  away 
back  into  the  cerulean  sky.  Her  mountains, 
shadowy  in  sunshine,  and  seeming  restless  as 
seas,  where  are  they  now  ? — The  cloud-cleav- 
ing clifl^s  that  shot  up  into  the  blue  region  where 
the  buzzard  sailed  1  All  gone.  But  mourn  not 
for  that  loss.  Accustom  thine  eye — and  through 
it  thy  soul  to  that  transcendent  substitution,  and 
deeply  will  they  be  reconciled.  Sawest  thou 
ever  the  bosom  of  the  Lake  hushed  into  pro- 
founder  restl  No  white-winged  pinnace  glides 
through  the  sunshine — no  clanking  oar  is 
heard  leaving  or  approaching  cape,  point,  or 
bay — no  music  of  voice,  stop,  or  string,  wakens 
the  sleeping  echoes.  How  strangely  dim  and 
confused  on  the  water  the  fantastic  frostwork 


156 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


imagery,  yet  more  steadfastly  hanging  there 
than  ever  hung  the  banks  of  summer!  For 
all  one  sheet  of  ice,  now  clear  as  the  Glass  of 
Glamoury  in  which  that  Lord  of  old  beheld  his 
Geraldine — is  Windermere,  the  heaven-loving 
and  the  heaven-beloved.  Not  a  wavelet  mur- 
murs in  all  her  bays,  from  the  silvan  Brathay 
to  where  the  southern  straits  narrow  into  a 
river — now  chained  too,  the  Leven,  on  his  sil- 
van course  towards  that  perilous  Estuary  afar 
off  raging  on  its  wreck-strewn  sands.  The 
frost  came  after  the  last  fall  of  snow — and  not 
a  single  flake  ever  touched  that  surface;  and 
ncfw  that  you  no  longer  miss  the  green  twink- 
ling of  the  large  July  leaves,  does  not  imagina- 
tion love  those  motionless  frozen  forests,  cold 
but  not  dead,  serene  but  not  sullen,  inspirative 
in  the  strangeness  of  their  appan^lling  of  wild 
thoughts  about  the  scenery  of  foreign  climes, 
far  away  among  the  regions  of  the  North, 
where  Nature  works  her  wonders  aloof  from 
human  eyes,  and  that  wild  architect  Frost, 
during  the  absence  of  the  sun,  employs  his 
night  of  months  in  building  and  dissolving  his 
ice-palaces,  magnificent  beyond  the  reach  of 
any  power  set  to  work  at  the  bidding  of  earth's 
crowned  and  sceptred  kings?  All  at  once  a 
hundred  houses,  high  up  among  the  hills,  seem 
on  fire.  The  setting  sun  has  smitten  them,  and 
the  snow-tracts  are  illuminated  by  harmless 
conflagrations.  Their  windows  are  all  lighted 
up  by  a  lurid  splendour,  in  its  strong  sudden- 
ness sublime.  13ut  look,  look,  we  beseech  you, 
at  the  sun — the  sunset — the  sunset  region — 
and  all  that  kindred  and  corresponding  heaven. 
eftulgcnf,  where  a  minute  ago  lay  in  its  cold 
glitter  the  blue  bosom  of  the  lake.  Who  knows 
the  laws  of  light  and  the  perpetual  miracle  of 
their  operatitJul  God — net  thou.  The  snow- 
mountains  are  white  no  more,  but  gorgeous  in 
their  colouring  as  the  clouds.  Lo  !  Pavey-Ark 
— magnificent  range  of  cliff's — seeming  to  come 
forward,  while  you  gaze  ! — How  it  glows  with 
a  rosy  light,  as  if  a  (lush  of  flowers  decked  the 
precipice  in  that  delicate  splendour  !  Lang- 
dale-Pikes,  meihinks,  are  tinged  with  finest 
purple,  and  the  thought  of  violets  is  with  us 
as  we  gaze  on  the  tinted  bosom  of  the  moun- 
tains dearest  to  the  setting  snn.  But  that  long 
broad  slip  of  orange-coloured  sky  is  yellowing 
with  its  reflection  almost  all  the  rest  of  our 
Alps — all  but  yon  stranger — the  summit  of 
some  mountain  belonging  to  another  region — 
ay — the  Great  Gabel — silent  now  as  sleep — 
when  last  we  clomb  his  clifl's,  thundering  in 
the  mists  of  all  his  cataracts.  In  his  shroud 
he  stands  pallid  like  a  ghost.  Beyond  the  reach 
of  the  setting  sun  he  lours  in  his  exclusion 
from  the  rejoicing  light,  and  imagination,  per- 
sonifying his  solitary  vastncss  into  forsaken 
life,  pities  the  doom  of  the  forlorn  Giant.  Ha! 
just  as  the  eye  of  day  is  about  to  shut,  one 
smile  seems  sent  afar  to  that  lonesome  moun- 
tain, and  a  crown  of  crimson  encompasses  his 
forehead. 

On  which  of  the  two  sunsets  art  thou  now 
gazing  1  Thou  who  art  to  our  old  loving  eyes 
so  like  the  "  mountain  nymph,  sweet  Liberty  ?" 
On  the  sunset  in  the  heaven — or  the  sunset  in 
the  lake  1  The  divine  truth  is — O  Daughter 
of  our  Age  ! — that  both  sunsets  are  but  visions 


of  our  own  spirits.  Again  both  are  gone  from 
the  outward  world — and  naught  remains  but  a 
forbidden  frown  of  the  cold  bleak  snow.  But 
imperishable  in  thy  imagination  will  both  sun- 
sets be — and  though  it  will  sometimes  retire 
into  the  recesses  of  thy  memory,  and  lie  there 
among  the  unsuspected  treasures  of  forgotten 
imagery  that  have  been  unconsciously  accu- 
mulating there  since  first  those  gentle  eyes  of 
thine  had  perfect  vision  given  to  their  depths 
— yet  mysteriously  brought  back  from  vanish- 
ment by  some  one  single  silent  thought,  to 
which  power  has  been  yielding  over  that  bright 
portion  of  the  Past,  will  both  of  them  some- 
times reappear  to  thee  in  solitude — or  haply 
when  in  the  very  heart  of  life.  And  then 
surely  a  few  tears  will  fall  for  sake  of  him — 
then  no  more  seen — by  whose  side  thou  stood- 
est,  when  that  double  sunset  enlarged  thy  sense 
of  beauty,  and  made  thee  in  thy  father's  eyes 
the  sweetest — best — and  brightest  poetess— 
whose  whole  life  is  musical  inspiration — ode, 
eleg}-,  and  hymn,  sung  not  in  words  but  in 
looks — sigh-breathed  or  speechlessly  distilled 
in  tears  flowing  from  feelings  the  farthest  ia 
this  world  from  grief. 

So  much,  though  but  little,  for  the  beautiful — 
with,  perhaps,  a  tinge  of  the  sublime.  Are  the 
two  emotions  different  and  distinct — thinkst 
thou,  O  metaphysical  critic  of  the  gruesome 
countenance— <)r  modifications  of  one  and  the 
same?  'Tis  a  puzzling  question — and  we, 
Sphinx,  might  wait  till  doomsday,  before  you, 
CEdipus,  could  solve  the  enigma.  Certainly  a 
Rose  is  one  thing  and  .Mount  ^titna  is  another 
— an  antelope  and  an  elephant — an  insect  and 
a  man-of-war,  both  sailing  in  the  sun — a  little 
lucid  well  in  which  the  fairies  bathe,  and  the 
Polar  Sea  in  which  Leviathan  is  "  wallowing 
unwieldy,  enormous  in  his  gait" — the  jewelled 
finger  of  a  virgin  bride,  and  grim  Saturn  with 
his  ring — the  upward  eye  of  a  kneeling  saint, 
and  a  comet,  "  that  from  his  horrid  hair  shakes 
pestilence  and  war."  But  let  the  rose  bloom 
on  the  mouldering  ruins  of  the  palace  of  some 
great  king — among  the  temples  of  Balbec  or 
Syrian  Tndmor — and  in  its  beauty,  methinks, 
'twill  be  also  sublime.  See  the  antelope  bound- 
ing across  a  raging  cha«m — up  among  the 
region  of  eternal  snows  on  Mont  Blanc — and 
deny  it,  if  you  please — but  assuredly  we  think 
that  there  is  sublimity  in  the  fearless  flight  of 
that  beautiful  creature,  to  whom  nature  grudged 
not  wings,  but  gave  instead  the  power  of 
plumes  to  her  small  delicate  limbs,  unfractured 
by  alighting  among  the  pointed  rocks.  All 
alone,  by  your  single  solitary  self,  in  some 
wide,  lifeless  desert,  could  you  deny  sublimity 
to  the  unlooked-for  hum  of  the  tiniest  insect,  or 
to  the  sudden  shiver  of  the  beauty  of  his  gauze- 
wings?  Not  you,  indeed.  Stooping  down  to 
quench  your  thirst  in  that  little  lucid  well 
where  the  fairies  bathe,  what  if  you  saw  the 
image  of  the  evening  star  shining  in  some 
strange  subterranean  world  ?  We  suspect 
that  you  would  hold  in  your  breath,  and  swear 
devoutly  that  it  was  sublime.  Dead  on  the 
very  evening  of  her  marriage  day  is  that  vir- 
gin bride  whose  delicacy  was  so  beautiful — 
and  as  she  lies  in  her  white  wedding  garments 
that  serve  for  a  shroud — that  emblem  of  eter- 


THE  HOLY  CHILD. 


157 


nity  and  of  eternal  love,  the  ring,  upon  her  fin- 
ger— with  its  encased  star  shiningbrightly  now 
that  her  eyes,  once  stars,  are  closed — would,  me- 
thinks,  be  sublime  to  all  Christian  hearts.  In 
comparison  with  all  these  beautiful  sublimities, 
Mount  ^tna,  the  elephant,  the  man-of-war. 
Leviathan   swimming  the   ocean-stream,  Sa- 


turn with  his  ring,  and  with  his  horrid  hair 
the  comet — might  be  all  less  than  nothings. 
Therefore  beauty  and  sublimity  are  twin  feel- 
ings— one  and  the  same  birth — seldom  insepa- 
rable;— if  you  still  doubt  it,  become  a  fire-wor- 
shipper, and  sing  your  morning  and  evening 
orisons  to  the  rising  and  the  setting  sun. 


THE   HOLY  CHILD. 


This  House  of  ours  is  a  prison — this  Study 
of  ours  a  cell.  Time  has  laid  his  fetters  on  our 
feet — fetters  fine  as  the  gossamer,  but  strong 
as  Samson's  ribs,  silken-soft  to  wise  submis- 
sion, but  to  vain  impatience  galling  as  cankered 
wound  that  keeps  ceaselessly  eating  into  the 
bone.  But  while  our  bodily  feet  are  thus  bound 
by  an  inevitable  and  inexorable  law,  our  men- 
tal wings  are  free  as  those  of  the  lark,  the  dove, 
or  the  eagle — and  they  shall  be  expanded  as 
of  yore,  in  calm  or  tempest,  now  touching  with 
their  tips  the  bosom  of  this  dearl)'  beloved 
earth,  and  now  aspiring  heavenwards,  beyond 
the  realms  of  mist  and  cloud,  even  unto  the 
very  core  of  the  still  heart  of  that  otherwise 
unapproachable  sky  which  graciously  opens 
to  receive  us  on  our  flight,  when,  disencum- 
bered of  the  burden  of  all  grovelling  thoughts, 
and  strong  in  spirituality,  we  exult  to  soar 

"  Beyond  this  visible  diurnal  sphere," 

nearing  and  nearing  the  native  region  of  its 
own  incomprehensible  being. 

Now  touching,  we  said,  with  their  tips  the 
bosom  of  this  dearly  beloved  earth !  How 
sweet  that  attraction  to  imagination's  wings  ! 
How  delightful  in  that  lower  flight  to  skim 
along  the  green  ground,  or  as  now  along  the 
soft-bosomed  beauty  of  the  virgin  snow!  We 
were  asleep  all  night  long — sound  asleep  as 
children — while  the  flakes  were  falling,  "  and 
soft  as  snow  on  snow"  were  all  the  descendings 
of  our  untroubled  dreams.  The  moon  and  all 
her  stars  were  willing  that  their  lustre  should 
be  veiled  by  that  peaceful  shower ;  and  now 
the  sun,  pleased  with  the  purity  of  the  morning 
earth,  all  white  as  innocence,  looks  down  from 
heaven  with  a  meek  unmelting  light,  and  still 
leaves  undissolved  the  stainless  splendour. 
There  is  frost  in  the  air — but  he  "  does  his  spi- 
riting gently,"  studding  the  ground-snow  thick- 
ly with  diamonds,  and  shaping  the  tree-snow 
according  to  the  peculiar  and  characteristic 
beauty  of  the  leaves  and  sprays,  on  which  it 
has  alighted  almost  as  gently  as  the  dews  of 
spring.  You  know  every  kind  of  tree  still  by 
its  own  spirit  showing  itself  through  that  fairy 
veil — momentarily  disguised  from  recognition 
— but  admired  the  more  in  the  sweet  surprise 
with  which  again  your  heart  salutes  its  fami- 
liar branches,  all  fancifully  ornamented  with 
their  snow  foliage,  that  murmurs  not  like  the 
green  leaves  of  summer,  that  like  the  yellow 
leaves  of  autumn  strews  not  the  earth  with  de- 


cay, but  often  melts  away  into  changes  so  in- 
visible and  inaudible  that  you  wonder  to  find 
that  it  is  all  vanished,  and  to  see  the  old  tree 
again  standing  in  its  own  faint-green  glossy 
bark,  with  its  many  million  buds,  which  per- 
haps fancy  suddenly  expands  into  a  power  of 
umbrage  impenetrable  to  the  sun  in  Scorpio. 

A  sudden  burst  of  sunshine  !  bringing  back 
the  pensive  spirit  from  the  past  to  the  present, 
and  kindling  it,  till  it  dances  like  light  reflected 
from  a  burning  mirror.  A  cheerful  Sun-scene, 
though  almost  destitute  of  life.  An  undulating 
Landscape,  hillocky  and  hilly,  but  not  moun- 
tainous, and  buried  under  the  weight  of  a  day 
and  night's  incessant  and  continuous  snow-fall. 
The  weather  has  not  been  windy — and  now 
that  the  flakes  have  ceased  falling,  there  is  not 
a  cloud  to  be  seen,  except  some  delicate  braid- 
ings here  and  there  along  the  calm  of  the  Great 
Blue  Sea  of  Heaven.  Most  luminous  is  the 
sun,  yet  you  can  look  straight  on  his  face, 
almost  with  unwinking  eyes,  so  mild  and  mel- 
low is  his  large  light  as  it  overflows  the  day. 
All  enclosures  have  disappeared,  and  you  in- 
distinctly ken  the  greater  landmarks,  such  as 
a  grove,  a  wood,  a  hall,  a  castle,  a  spire,  a 
village,  a  town — the  faint  haze  of  a  far  ofll'and 
smokeless  city.  Most  intense  is  the  silence ; 
for  all  the  streams  are  dumb,  and  the  great 
river  lies  like  a  dead  serpent  in  the  strath. 
Not  dead — for,  lo!  yonder  one  of  his  folds  glit- 
ters— and  in  the  glitter  you  see  him  moving — 
while  all  the  rest  of  his  sullen  length  is  palsied 
by  frost,  and  looks  livid  and  more  livid  at 
every  distant  and  more  distant  winding.  What 
blackens  on  that  tower  of  snowl  Crows 
roosting  innumerous^tiil  a  huge  tree— but  they 
caw  not  in  their  hunger.  Neither  sheep  nor 
cattle  are  to  be  seen  or  heard— but  they  are 
cared  for ;— the  folds  and  the  farm-yards  are  all 
full  of  life— and  the  ungathered  stragglers  are 
safe  in  their  instincts.  There  has  been  a  deep 
fall — but  no  storm — and  the  silence,  though 
partly  that  of  suffering,  is  not  that  of  death. 
Therefore,  to  the  imagination,  unsaddened  by 
the  heart,  the  repose  is  beautiful.  The  almost 
unbroken  uniformity  of  the  scene— its  simple 
and  grand  monotony — lulls  all  the  thoughts 
and  feelings  into  a  calm,  over  which  is  breathed 
the  gentle  excitation  of  a  novel  charm,  inspir« 
ing  many  fancies,  all  of  a  quiet  character. 
Their  range,  perhaps,  is  not  very  extensive, 
but  they  all  regard  the  homefelt  and  domestic 
charities  of  life.  And  the  heart  burns  as  here 
O 


158 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


and  there  some  human  dwelling  discovers 
itself  by  a  wreath  of  smoke  up  the  air,  or  as 
the  robin  redbreast,  a  creature  that  is  ever  at 
hand,  comes  flitting  before  your  path  with  an 
almost  pert  flutter  of  his  feathers,  bold  from 
the  acquaintanceship  he  has  formed  with  you 
in  severer  weather  at  the  threshold  or  window 
of  the  tenement,  which  for  years  may  have 
been  the  winter  sanctuarj'  of  the  "bird  whom 
man  loves  best,"  and  who  bears  a  Christian 
name  in  every  clime  he  inhabits.  Meanwhile 
the  sun  waxes  brighter  and  warmer  in  heaven 
— some  insects  are  in  the  air,  as  if  that  mo- 
ment called  to  life — and  the  mosses  that  may 
yet  be  visible  here  and  there  along  the  ridge  of 
a  wall  or  on  the  stem  of  a  tree,  in  variegated 
lustre  frost-brightened,  seem  to  delight  in  liie 
snow,  and  in  no  other  season  of  the  year  to  be 
so  happy  as  in  winter.  Such  gentle  touches 
of  pleasure  animate  one's  whole  being,  and 
connect,  by  many  a  fine  association,  the  emo- 
tions inspired  by  the'objects  of  animate  and  of 
inanimate  nature. 

Ponder  on  the  idea — the  emotion  of  purity — 
and  how  finely  soul-blent  is  the  delight  imagi- 
nation feels  in  a  bright  hush  of  new-fallen 
snow!  Some  speck  or  stain — however  slight 
—there  always  seems  to  be  on  the  most  perfect 
■whiteness  of  any  other  substance— or  "dim 
sufl^usion  veils"  it  with  some  faint  discolour — 
witness  even  the  leaf  of  the  lily  or  the  rose. 
Heaven  forbid  that  we  should  ever  breathe 
aught  but  love  and  delight  in  the  beauty  of 
these  consummate  flowers  !  But  feels  not  the 
heart,  even  when  the  midsummer  morning 
sunshine  is  melting  the  dews  on  their  fragrant 
bosoms,  that  their  loveliness  is  "of  the  earth 
earthy" — faintly  tinged  or  streaked,  when  at 
the  very  fairest,  with  a  hue  foreboding  lan- 
guishment  and  decay  1  Not  the  less  for  its 
sake  are  those  soulless  flowers  dear  to  us — 
thus  owning  kindred  with  them  whose  beauty 
is  all  soul  enshrined  for  a  short  while  on  that 
perishable  face.  Do  we  not  still  regard  the 
insensate  flowers — so  emblematical  of  what,  in 
human  life,  we  do  most  passionately  love  and 
profoundly  pity — with  a  pensive  emotion,  often 
deepening  into  melancholy  that  sometimes,  ere 
the  strong  fit  subsides,  blackens  into  despair! 
What  pain  doubtless  was  in  the  heart  of  the 
Elegiac  Poet  of  old,  when  he  sighed  over  the 
transitory  beauty  of  flowers — 

"  Conquerimur  nntura  brevis  quam  gratia  Florumi" 

But  over  a  perfectly  pure  expanse  of  night- 
fallen  snow,  when  unaffected  by  the  gentle  sun, 
the  first  fine  frost  has  incrusted  it  with  small 
sparkling  diamonds,  the  prevalent  emotion  is 
Joy.  There  is  a  charm  in  the  sudden  and  total 
disappearance  even  of  the  grassy  green.  All 
the  "  old  familiar  faces"  of  nature  are  for  a 
while  out  of  sight,  and  out  of  mind.  That 
white  silence  shed  by  heaven  over  earth  carries 
with  it,  far  and  wide,  the  pure  peace  of  another 
region — almost  another  life.  No  image  is 
there  to  tell  of  this  restless  and  noisy  world. 
The  cheerfulness  of  reality  kindles  up  our  reve- 
rie ere  it  becomes  a  dream ;  and  we  are  glad 
to  feel  our  whole  being  complexioned  by  the 
passionless  repose.  If  we  think  at  all  of  hu- 
man life,  it  is  only  of  the  young,  the  fair,  and 


the  innocent.  "  Pure  as  snow,"  are  words  then 
felt  to  be  most  hoh%  as  the  image  of  j:ome 
beautiful  and  beloved  being  comes  and  goes 
before  our  eyes — brought  from  a  far  distance 
in  this  our  living  world,  or  from  a  distance 
further  still  in  a  world  beyond  the  grave — the 
image  of  a  virgin  growing  up  sinlessly  to  wo- 
manhood among  her  parents'  prayers,  or  of 
some  spiritual  creature  who  expired  long  ago, 
and  carried  with  her  her  native  innocence  un- 
stained to  heaven. 

Such  Spiritual  Creature — too  spiritual  long 
to  sojourn  below  the  skies — wert  Thou — whose 
rising  and  whose  setting — both  most  starlike 
— brightened  at  once  all  thy  native  vale,  and 
at  once  left  it  in  darkness.  Th}'  name  has 
long  slept  in  our  heart — and  there  let  it  sleep 
unbreathed — even  as,  when  we  are  dreaming 
our  way  through  some  solitary  place,  without 
naming  it,  we  bless  the  beauty  of  some  sweet 
wild-fluwcr,  pensively  smiling  to  ns  through 
the  snow. 

The  Sabbath  returns  on  which,  in  the  little 
kirk  among  the  hills,  we  saw  .thee  baptized. 
Then  comes  a  wavering  glimmer  of  five  sweet 
years,  that  to  Thee,  in  all  their  varieties,  were 
but  as  one  delightful  season,  one  blessed  life 
— and,  finally,  that  other  Sabbath,  on  which, 
at  thy  own  dying  request — between  sers'ices 
thou  wert  buried. 

How  mysterious  are  all  thy  ways  and  work- 
ings, O  gracious  Nature !  Thou  who  art  but 
a  name  given  by  us  to  the  Being  in  whom  all 
things  are  and  have  life.  Ere  three  years  old, 
she,  whose  image  is  now  with  us,  all  over  the 
small  silvan  world  that  beheld  the  evanescent 
revelation  of  her  pure  existence,  was  called 
the  "Holy  Child!"  The  taint  of  sin — inherited 
from  those  who  disobeyed  in  Paradise — seemed 
from  her  fair  clay  to  have  been  washed  out  at 
the  baptismal  font,  and  by  her  first  infantine 
tears.  So  pious  people  almost  believed,  look- 
ing on  her  so  unlike  all  other  children,  in  the 
serenity  of  that  habitual  smile  that  clothed  the 
creature's  countenance  with  a  wondrous  beau- 
ty at  an  age  when  on  other  infants  is  but  faint- 
ly seen  the  dawn  of  reason,  and  their  eyes 
look  happ)'  just  like  the  thoughtless  flowers. 
So  unlike  all  other  children — but  unlike  only 
because  sooner  than  they  she  seemed  to  have 
had  given  to  her,  even  in  the  communion  of 
the  cradle,  an  intimation  of  the  being  and 
the  providence  of  God.  Sooner,  surely,  than 
through  any  other  clay  that  ever  enshrouded 
immortal  spirit,  dawned  the  light  of  religion 
on  the  face  of  the  "Holy  Child." 

Her  lisping  language  was  sprinkled  with 
words  alien  from  common  childhood's  un- 
certain speech,  that  murmurs  only  when  in- 
digent nature  prompts ;  and  her  own  parents 
wondered  whence  they  came,  when  first  they 
looked  upon  her  kneeling  in  an  unbidden 
prayer.  As  one  mild  week  of  vernal  sunshine 
covers  the  braes  with  primroses,  so  shone 
with  fair  and  fragrant  feeling — unfolded,  ere 
they  knew,  before  her  parents'  eyes — the  divine 
nature  of  her  who  for  a  season  was  lent  tw 
them  from  the  skies.  She  learned  to  read  out 
of  the  Bible — almost  without  any  teaching — 
they  knew  not  how — just  by  looking  gladly  on 
the  words,  even  as  she  looked  on  thf  pretty 


THE  HOLY  CHILD. 


159 


daisies  on  the  green — till  their  meanings  stole 
insensibly  into  her  soul,  and  the  sweet  sylla- 
bles, succeeding  each  other  on  the  blessed 
page,  were  all  united  by  the  memories  her 
heart  had  been  treasuring  every  hour  that  her 
father  or  her  mother  had  read  aloud  in  her 
hearing  from  the  Book  of  Life.  "Suffer  little 
children  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them  not, 
for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven" — how 
wept  her  parents,  as  these  the  most  affecting 
of  our  Saviour's  words  dropt  silver-sweet  from 
her  lips,  and  continued  in  her  upward  eyes 
among  the  swimming  tears  ! 

Be  not  incredulous  of  this  dawn  of  reason, 
wonderful  as  it  may  seem  to  you,  so  soon  be- 
coming morn — almost  perfect  daylight — with 
the  "Holy  Child."  Many  such  miracles  are 
set  before  us — but  we  recognise  them  not,  or 
pass  ihem  by  with  a  word  or  a  smile  of  short 
surprise.  How  leaps  the  baby  in  its  mother's 
arms,  when  the  mysterious  charm  of  music 
thrills  through  its  little  brain  !  And  how  learns 
it  to  modulate  its  feeble  voice,  unable  yet  to 
articulate,  to  the  melodies  that  bring  forth  all 
round  its  eyes  a  delighted  smile!  Who  knows 
•what  then  may  be  the  thoughts  and  feelings 
of  the  infant  awakened  to  the  sense  of  a  new 
world,  alive  through  all  its  being  to  sounds  that 
haply  glide  past  our  ears  unmeaning  as  the 
breath  of  the  common  air  !  Thus  have  mere 
infants  sometimes  been  seen  inspired  by  music 
till,  like  small  genii,  they  warbled  spell-strains 
of  their  own,  powerful  to  sadden  and  subdue 
our  hearts.  So,  too,  have  infant  eyes  been  so 
charmed  by  the  rainbow  irradiating  the  earth, 
that  almost  infant  hands  have  been  taught,  as 
if  by  inspiration,  the  power  to  paint  in  finest 
colours,  and  to  imitate,  with  a  wondrous  art, 
the  skies  so  beautiful  to  the  quick-awakened 
spirit  of  delight.  What  knowledge  have  not 
some  children  acquired,  and  gone  down 
scholars  to  their  small  untimely  graves ! 
Knowing  that  such  things  have  been — are — 
and  will  be — why  art  thou  incredulous  of  the 
divine  expansion  of  soul,  so  soon  understand- 
ing the  things  that  are  divine — in  the  "  Holy 
Child?" 

Thus  grew  she  in  the  eye  of  God,  day  by 
day  waxing  wiser  and  wiser  in  the  knowledge 
that  tends  towards  the  skies  ;  and,  as  if  some 
angel  visitant  were  nightly  with  her  in  her 
dreams,  awakening  every  morn  with  a  new 
dream  of  thought,  that  brought  with  it  a  gift 
of  more  comprehensive  speech.  Yet  merry 
she  was  at  times  with  her  companions  among 
the  woods  and  braes,  though  while  they  all 
were  laughing,  she  only  smiled ;  and  the  pass- 
ing traveller,  who  might  pause  for  a  moment 
to  bless  the  sweet  creatures  in  their  play,  could 
not  but  single  out  one  face  among  the  many 
fair,  so  pensive  in  its  paleness,  a  face  to  be 
remembered,  coming  from  afar,  like  a  mourn- 
ful thought  upon  the  hour  of  joy. 

Sister  or  brother  of  her  own  had  she  none — 
and  often  both  her  parents — who  lived  in  a 
hut  by  itself  up  among  the  mossy  stumps  of 
the  old  decayed  forest — had  to  leave  her  alone 
— sometimes  even  all  the  day  long  from  morn- 
ing till  night.  But  she  no  more  wearied  in  her 
solitariness  than  does  the  wren  in  the  wood. 
All  the  flowers  were  herfriends— all  the  birds. 


The  linnet  ceased  not  his  song  for  her,  though 
her  footsteps  wandered  into  the  green  glade 
among  the  yellow  broom,  almost  within  reach 
of  the  spray  from  which  he  poured  his  melody 
— the  quiet  eyes  of  his  mate  feared  her  not 
when  her  garments  almost  touched  the  bush 
where  she  brooded  on  her  young.  Shyest  o^ 
the  winged  silvans,  the  cushat  clapped  not 
her  wings  away  on  the  soft  approach  of  such 
harmless  footsteps  to  the  pine  that  concealed 
her  slender  nest.  As  if  blown  from  heaven, 
descended  round  her  path  the  showers  of  the 
painted  butterflies,  to  feed,  sleep,  or  die — un- 
disturbed by  her — upon  the  wild-flowers — with 
wings,  when  motionless,  undistinguishable  from 
the  blossoms.  And  well  she  loved  the  brown, 
busy,  blameless  bees,  come  thither  for  the 
honey-dews  from  a  hundred  cots  sprinkled  all 
over  the  parish,  and  all  high  overhead  sailing 
away  at  evening,  laden  and  wearied,  to  their 
straw-roofed  skeps  in  many  a  hamlet  garden. 
The  leaf  of  every  tree,  shrub,  and  plant,  she 
knew  familiarly  and  lovingly  in  its  own  cha- 
racteristic beauty;  and  she  was  loath  to  shake 
one  dew-drop  from  the  sweetbrier-rose.  And 
well  she  knew  that  all  nature  loved  her  iu 
return — that  they  were  dear  to  each  other  in 
their  innocence — and  that  the  very  sunshine, 
in  motion  or  in  rest,  was  ready  to  come  at  the 
bidding  of  her  smiles.  Skilful  those  small 
white  hands  of  hers  among  the  reeds  and 
rushes  and  osiers — and  many  a  pretty  flower- 
basket  grew  beneath  their  touch,  her  parents 
wondering  on  their  return  home  tc.  see  the 
handiwork  of  one  who  was  never  idle  in  her 
happiness.  Thus  early — ere  yet  but  five  years 
old — did  she  earn  her  mite  for  the  sustenance 
of  her  own  beautiful  life.  The  russet  garb  she 
wore  she  herself  had  won — and  thus  Poverty, 
at  the  door  of  that  hut,  became  even  like  a 
Guardian  Angel,  with  the  lineaments  of  hea- 
ven on  her  brow,  and  the  quietude  of  heaven 
beneath  her  feet. 

But  these  were  but  her  lonely  pastimes,  or 
gentle  taskwork  self-imposed  among  her  pas- 
times, and  itself  the  sweetest  of  them  all,  in- 
spired by  a  sense  of  duty  that  still  brings  with 
it  its  own  delight,  and  hallowed  by  religion, 
that  even  in  the  most  adverse  lot  changes 
slavery  into  freedom— till  the  heart,  insensible 
to  the  bonds  of  necessity,  sings  aloud  for  joy. 
The  life  within  the  life  of  the  "  Holy  Child," 
apart  from  even  such  innocent  employments 
as  these,  and  from  such  recreations  as  inno- 
cent, among  the  shadows  and  the  sunshine  of 
those  silvan  haunts,  was  passed — let  us  fear 
not  to  say  the  truth,  wondrous  as  such  worship 
was  in  one  so  very  young — was  passed  in  the 
worship  of  God ;  and  her  parents — though 
sometimes  even  saddened  to  see  such  piety  in 
a  small  creature  like  her,  and  afraid,  in  their 
exceeding  love,  that  it  betokened  an  early  re- 
moval from  this  world  of  one  too  perfectly  pure 
ever  to  be  touched  by  its  sins  and  sorrows — 
forbore,  in  an  awful  pity,  ever  to  remove  the 
Bible  from  her  knees,  as  she  would  sit  with  it 
there,  not  at  morning  and  at  evening  only,  or 
all  the  Sabbath  long  as  soon  as  they  returned 
from  the  kirk,  but  often  through  all  the  hours 
of  the  longest  and  sunniest  week-days,  when, 
had  she  chosen  to  do  so,  there  was  nothing  to 


160 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


hinder  her  from  going  up  the  hill-side,  or  down  ] 
to  the  little  village,  to  play  with  the  other  chil- 
dren, always  too  happy  when  she  appeared — 
nothing  to  hinder  her  but  the  voice  she  heard 
speaking  in  that  Book,  and  the  hallelujahs 
that,  at  the  turning  over  of  each  blessed  page, 
came  upon  the  ear  of  the  "Holy  Child"  from 
white-robed  saints  all  kneeling  before  His 
throne  in  heaven. 

Her  life  seemed  to  be  the  same  in  sleep. 
Often  at  midnight,  by  the  light  of  the  moon 
shining  in  upon  her  little  bed  beside  theirs, 
her  parents  leant  over  her  face,  diviner  in 
dreams,  and  wept  as  she  wept,  her  lips  all  ihe 
while  murmuring,  in  broken  sentences  of 
prayer,  the  name  of  Him  who  died  for  us  all. 
But  plenteous  as  were  her  penitential  tears — 
penitential  in  the  holy  humbleness  of  her  stain- 
less spirit,  over  thoughts  that  had  never  left  a 
dimming  breath  on  its  purity,  yet  that  seemed 
in  those  strange  visitings  to  be  haunting  her  as 
the  shadows  of  sins — soon  were  they  all  dried 
up  in  the  lustre  of  her  returning  smiles.  Wak- 
ing, her  voice  in  the  kirk  was  the  sweetest 
among  many  sweet,  as  all  the  young  singers, 
and  she  the  youngest  far,  sat  together  by  them- 
selves, and  within  the  congregational  music 
of  the  psalm  uplifted  a  silvery  strain  that 
sounded  like  the  very  spirit  of  the  whole,  even 
like  angelic  harmony  blent  with  a  mortal  song. 
But  sleeping,  still  more  sweetly  sang  the  "Holy 
Child;"  and  then,  too,  in  some  diviner  inspi- 
ration than  ever  was  granted  to  it  while  awake, 
her  soul  composed  its  own  hymns,  and  set  the 
simple  scriptural  words  to  its  own  mysterious 
music — the  tunes  she  loved  best  gliding  into 
one  another,  without  once  ever  marring  the 
melody,  with  pathetic  touches  interposed  never 
heard  before,  and  never  more  to  be  renewed ! 
For  each  dream  had  its  own  breathing,  and 
many-visioned  did  then  seem  to  be  the  sinless 
creature's  sleep. 

The  love  that  was  borne  for  her  all  over  the 
hill-region,  and  beyond  its  circling  clouds,  was 
almost  such  as  mortal  creatures  might  be 
thought  to  feel  for  some  existence  that  had 
visibly  come  from  heaven.  Yet  all  who  looked 
on  her,  saw  that  she,  like  themselves,  was 
mortal,  and  many  an  eye  was  wet,  the  heart 
■wist  not  why,  to  hear  such  wisdom  falling 
from  such  lips;  for  dimly  did  it  prognosticate, 
that  as  short  as  bright  would  be  her  walk  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave.  And  thus  for  the 
"Holy  Child"  was  their  love  elevated  by  awe, 
and  saddened  by  pity — and  as  by  herself  she 
passed  pensively  by  their  dwellings,  the  same 
eyes  that  smiled  on  her  presence,  on  her  dis- 
appearance wept. 

Not  in  vain  for  others — and  for  herself,  oh  ! 
what  great  gain  ! — for  those  few  years  on  earth 
did  that  pure  spirit  ponder  on  the  word  of  God  ! 
Other  children  became  pious  from  their  delight 
in  her  piety — for  she  was  simple  as  the 
simplest  amonsr  them  all,  and  walked  with 
them  hand  in  hand,  nor  declined  companion- 
ship with  any  one  that  was  good.  But  all 
grew  good  by  being  with  her — and  parents 
had  but  to  whisper  her  name,  and  in  a  mo- 
ment the  passionate  sob  was  hushed — the 
lowering  brow  lighted — and  the  household  in 
p-ace.    Older  hearts  owned  the  power  of  the 


piety  so  far  surpassing  their  thc)Ughts ;  and 
time-hardened  sinners,  it  is  said,  when  looking 
and  listening  to  the  "Holy  Child,"  knew  the 
error  of  their  ways,  and  returned  to  the  right 
path  as  at  a  voice  from  heaven. 

Bright  was  her  seventh  summer — the  bright- 
est, so  the  aged  said,  that  had  ever,  in  man's 
memory,  shone  over  Scotland.  One  long,  still, 
sunny,  blue  day  followed  another,  and  in  the 
rainless  weather,  though  the  dews  kept  green 
the  hills,  the  song  of  the  streams  was  low 
But  paler  and  paler,  in  sunlight  and  moon 
light,  became  the  sweet  face  that  had  been 
always  pale;  and  the  voice  that  had  been  al- 
ways something  mournful,  breathed  lower  and 
sadder  still  from  the  too  perfect  whiteness  of 
her  breast.  No  need — no  fear — to  tell  her  thai 
she  was  about  to  die.  Sweet  whispers  had 
sung  it  to  her  in  her  sleep — and  waking  she 
knew  it  in  the  look  of  the  piteous  skies.  But 
she  spoke  not  to  her  parents  of  death  more 
than  she  had  often  done — and  never  of  her 
own.  Only  she  seemed  to  love  them  with  a 
more  exceeding  love — and  was  readier,  even 
sometimes  when  no  one  was  speaking,  with  a 
few  drops  of  tears.  Sometimes  she  disap- 
peared— nor,  when  sought  for,  was  lound  in 
the  woods  about  the  hut.  And  one  day  that 
mystery  was  cleared ;  for  a  shepherd  saw  her 
sitting  by  herself  on  a  grassy  mound  in  a  nook 
of  the  small  solitar)-  kirkyard,  a  long  mile  off 
among  the  hills,  so  lost  in  reading  the  Bible, 
that  shadow  or  sound  of  his  feet  awoke  her 
not;  and,  ignorant  of  his  presence,  she  knell 
down  and  prayed — for  a  while  weeping  bitter- 
ly— but  soon  comforted  by  a  heavenly  calm — 
that  her  sins  might  be  forgiven  her! 

One  Sabbath  evening,  soon  after,  as  she  was 
sitting  beside  her  parents  at  the  door  of  their 
hut,  looking  first  for  a  long  while  on  their 
faces,  and  then  for  a  long  while  on  the  sky, 
though  it  was  not  yet  the  stated  hour  of  wor- 
ship, she  suddenly  knelt  down,  and  leaning  on 
their  knees,  with  hands  clasped  more  fervently 
than  her  wont,  she  broke  forth  into  tremulous 
singing  of  that  hymn  which  from  her  lips  they 
never  heard  without  unendurable  tears: 

"The  hour  of  my  departure's  cnmc, 
I  lienr  llie  voice  that  calls  mc  tiome ; 
At  Inst,  ()  Lord,  let  trouble  cease, 
And  let  thy  servant  die  in  peace  '." 

They  carried  her  fainting  to  her  little  bed,  and 
uttered  not  a  word  to  one  another  till  she  re- 
vived. The  shock  was  sudden,  but  not  unex- 
pected, and  they  knew  now  that  the  hand  of 
death  was  upon  her,  although  her  eyes  soon 
became  brighter  and  brighter,  they  thought, 
than  they  had  ever  been  before.  But  forehead, 
cheeks,  lips,  neck,  and  breast,  were  all  as 
white,  and,  to  the  quivering  hands  that  touched 
them,  almost  as  cold,  as  snow.  Ineffable  was 
the  bliss  in  those  radiant  eyes;  but  the  breath 
of  words  was  frozen,  and  that  hymn  was  al- 
most her  last  farewell.  Some  few  words  she 
spake — and  named  the  hour  and  day  she 
wished  to  be  buried.  Her  lips  could  then 
just  faintly  return  the  kiss,  and  no  more — a 
film  came  over  the  now  dim  blue  of  her  eyes 
— Ihe  father  listened  for  her  breath — and  then 
the  mother  took  his  place,  and  leaned  her  ear 
to  the  unbrealhing  mouth,  long  deluding  her* 


OUR  PARISH. 


161 


self  with  its  lifelike  smile  ;  but  a  sudden  dark- 
ness in  the  room,  and  a  sudden  stillness,  most 
dreadful  both,  convinced  their  unbelieving 
hearts  at  last,  that  it  was  death. 

All  the  parish,  it  may  be  said,  attended  her 
funeral — for  none  stayed  away  from  the  kirk 
that  Sabbath — though  many  a  voice  was  un- 
able to  join  in  the  Psalm.  The  little  grave 
was  soon  filled  up — and  you  hardly  knew  that 
the  turf  had  been  disturbed  beneath  which  she 
lay.  The  afternoon  service  consisted  but  of  a 
prayer — for  he  who  ministered,  had  loved  her 
with  love  unspeakable — and,  though  an  old 
grayhaired  man,  all  the  time  he  prayed  he 
wept.  In  the  sobbing  kirk  her  parents  were 
sitting,  but  no  one  looked  at  them — and  Avhen 
the  congregation  rose  to  go,  there  they  re- 
mained sitting — and  an  hour  afterwards,  came 
out  again  into  the  open  air,  and  parting  with 
their  pastor  at  the  gate,  walked  away  to  their 
hut,  overshadowed  with  the  blessing  of  a  thou- 
sand prayers. 

And  did  her  parents,  soon  after  she  was  bu- 
ried, die  of  broken  hearts,  or  pine  away  dis- 
consolately to  their  graves  ?  Think  not  that 
they,  who  were  Christians  indeed,  could  be 


guilty  of  such  ingratitude.    "  The  Lord  giveth, 
and   the  Lord   takelh  away — blessed   be  the 
name  of  the  Lord !"  were  the  first  words  they 
had  spoke  by  that  bedside  ;  during  many,  many 
long  years  of  weal  or  m'o,  duly  every  morning 
and  night,  these  same  blessed  words  did  they 
utter  when  on  their  knees  together  in  prayer 
— and  many  a  thousand  times  besides,  when 
they  were  apart,  she  in  her  silent  hut,  and  he 
on  the  hill — neither  of  them  unhappy  in  their 
solitude,   though   never   again,  perhaps,   was 
his  countenance  so  cheerful  as  of  yore — and 
though   often  suddenly  amidst  mirth  or  sun- 
shine their  eyes  were  seen  to  overflow.     Hap- 
py had  they  been — as  we  mortal  beings  ever 
',  can  be  happ)- — during  many  pleasant  years 
I  of  wedded  life  before  she  had  been  born.     And 
'  happy  were  they — on  to  the  verge  of  old  age 
I  — long  after  she  had  here  ceased  to  be.    Their 
I  Bible  had  indeed  been  an  idle  book — the  Bible 
that  belonged  to  •'  the  Holy  Child," — and  idle 
all  their  kirk-goings  with  "the  Holy  Child," 
through   the  Sabbath-calm— had   those  inter- 
I  mediate  years  not  left  a  power  of  bliss  be- 
hind  them   triumphant   over   death   and   the 
I  grave. 


OUE  PAEISH. 


Nature  must  be  bleak  and  barren  indeed  to 
possess  no  power  over  the  young  spirit  daily 
expanding  on  her  breast  into  new  suscepti- 
bilities, that  erelong  are  felt  to  fill  life  to  over- 
flowing with  a  perpetual  succession — an  infi- 
nite series — of  enjoyments.  Nowhere  is  she 
destitute  of  that  power — not  on  naked  sea- 
shores— not  in  centra!  deserts.  But  our  boy- 
hood was  environed  by  the  beautiful — its  home 
was  among  moors  and  mountains,  which  peo- 
ple in  towns  and  cities  called  dreary,  but 
which  we  knew  to  be  the  cheerfullest  and  most 
gladsome  parish  in  all  braid  Scotland — and 
well  it  might  be,  for  it  was  in  her  very  heart. 
Mountains  they  seemed  to  us  in  those  days, 
though  now  we  believe  they  are  only  hills.  But 
such  hills! — undulating  far  and  wide  away  till 
the  highest  even  on  clear  days  seemed  to  touch 
the  sky,  and  in  cloudy  weather  were  verily  a 
part  of  heaven.  Many  a  valley,  and  many  a 
glen — and  many  a  hollow  that  was  neither 
valley  nor  glen — and  many  a  flat,  of  but  a 
few  green  acres,  which  we  thought  plains — 
and  many  a  cleft  waterless  with  its  birks  and 
brechans,  except  when  the  rains  came  down, 
and  then  they  all  sang  a  new  song  in  merry 
chorus — and  many  a  wood,  and  many  a  grove, 
for  it  takes  no  great  number  of  trees  to  make 
a  wood,  and  four  firs  by  themselves  in  a  lone- 
some place  are  a  grove — and  many  a  single 
sycamore,  and  many  a  single  ash,  kenned  afar- 
off  above  its  protected  cottage — and  many  an 
indescribable  spot  of  scenery,  at  once  pastoral 
and  agricultural  and  silvan,  where  if  house 
there  was,  you  hardly  knew  it  among  the 
rocks ; — so  was  Our  Parish,  which  people  in 
21 


towns  and  cities  called  dreary,  composed;  but 
the  composition  itself— as  well  might  we  hope 
thus  to  show  it  to  your  soul's  eye,  as  by  a  few 
extracts  however  fine,  and  a  few  criticisms 
however  exquisite,  to  give  you  the  idea  of  a 
perfect  poem. 

But  we  have  not  given  you  more  than  a  sin- 
gle hint  of  a  great  part  of  oui  Parish — the 
Moor.  It  was  then  ever  so  many  miles  long, 
and  ever  so  many  miles  broad,  and  nobody 
thought  of  guessing  how  many  miles  round — 
but  some  twenty  years  ago  it  v/as  absolutely 
measured  to  a  rood  by  a  land-louper  of  a  land- 
surveyor —  distributed — drained  — enclosed — 
utterly  ruined  for  ever.  No,  not  for  ever.  Na- 
ture laughs  to  scorn  acts  of  Parliament,  and  we 
predict  that  in  a  quarter  of  a  century  she  will 
resume  her  management  of  that  moor.  We 
rejoice  to  hear  that  she  is  beginning  already 
to  take  lots  of  it  into  her  own  hands.  Wheat 
has  no  business  there,  and  should  keep  to  the 
carses.  In  spring  she  takes  him  by  the  braird 
till  he  looks  yellow  in  the  face  long  before  his 
time— in  summer,  by  the  cuff  of  the  neck  till 
he  lies  down  on  his  back  and  rots  in  the  rain 

in  autumn,  by  the  ears,  and  rubs  him  against 

the  grain  till  he  expires  as  fushionless  as  the 
winnlestraes  with  which  he  is  interlaced — in 
winter,  she  shakes  him  in  the  stook  till  he  is 
left  but  a  shadow  which  pigeons  despise.  Set; 
him  in  stack  at  Christmas,  and  you  pity  the  poor 
straw.  Here  and  there  bits  of  l>ear  or  big,  and 
barley,  she  permits  to  flourish — nor  is  she  loth 
to  see  the  flowers  and  shaws  and  apples  on 
the  poor  man's  plant,  the  life-sustaining  potato 
—which  none  but  political  economists  hate  and 
o2 


162 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


all  Christians  love.  She  is  not  so  sure  about 
lurnips,  but  as  they  are  a  green  crop  she 
leaves  them  to  the  care  of  the  fly.  But  where 
have  her  gowans  gone  1  There  they  still  are 
in  flocks,  wliich  no  cultivation  can  scatter  or 
eradicate — inextinguishable  by  all  the  lime 
that  was  ever  brought  unslokened  from  all  the 
kilns  that  ever  glowed — by  all  the  dung  that 
was  ever  heaped  up  fresh  and  fuming  from  all 
the  Augean  stables  in  the  land.  Yet  her  heart 
burns  within  her  to  behold,  even  in  the  midst 
of  what  she  abhors,  the  large  dew-loved  heads 
of  clover  whitening  or  reddening,  or  with  their 
rival  colours  amicably  intermingled,  a  new 
birth  glorious  in  the  place  of  reedy  marish  or 
fen  where  the  catspaws  nodded — and  them 
she  will  retain  unto  herself  when  once  more 
she  shall  rejoice  in  her  Wilderness  Restored. 

And  would  we  be  so  barbarous  as  to  seek 
to  impede  the  progress  of  improvement,  and 
to  render  agriculture  a  dead  letter]  We  are 
not  so  barbarous  nor  yet  so  savage.  We  love 
civilized  life,  of  which  we  have  long  been  one 
of  the  smaller  but  sincerest  ornaments.  But 
agriculture,  like  education,  has  its  bounds.  It 
is,  like  it,  a  science,  and  wo  to  the  country 
that  encourages  all  kinds  of  quacks.  Cultivate 
a  moor!  educate  a  boor!  First  understand 
the  character  of  Clods  and  Clodhoppers.  To 
say  nothing  of  the  Urbans  and  Suburbans — a 
perilous  people — yet  of  great  capabilities;  for 
to  discuss  that  question  would  lead  us  into 
lanes ;  and  as  it  is  a  long  lane  that  has  never 
a  turning,  for  the  present  we  keep  in  the  open 
air,  and  abstain  from  wynds.  We  are  no  ene- 
mies to  poor  soils,  far  less  to  rich  ones  igno- 
rantly,  and  stupidly  called  poor,  which  under 
proper  treatment  eflTuse  riches;  but  to  expect 
to  extract  from  paupers  a  return  for  the  expen- 
diture squandered  by  miserly  greed  on  their 
reluctant  bottoms,  cold  and  bare,  is  the  in- 
sanity of  speculation,  and  such  schemers  de- 
serve being  buried  along  with  their  capital  in 
quagmires.  Heavens!  how  the)- — the  quag- 
mires— suck  in  the  dung!  You  say  they  don't 
suck  it  in — well,  then,  they  spew  it  out — it 
evaporates — and  what  is  the  worth  of  weeds  7 
Lime  whitens  a  moss,  that  is  true,  but  so  does 
snow.  Snow  melts — what  becomes  of  lime 
no  mortal  knows  but  the  powheads — them  it 
poisons,  and  they  give  up  the  ghost.  Drains 
are  dug  deep  now-a-days — and  we  respect  Mr. 
Johnstone.  So  are  gold  mines.  But  from 
gold  mines  that  precious  metal — at  a  great 
expense,  witness  its  price — is  exterred ;  in 
drains,  that  precious  metal,  witness  wages,  is 
interred,  and  then  it  becomes  s<juash.  Stirks 
starve — heifers  are  hove  with  windy  nothing 
— with  oxen  frogs  compete  in  bulk  with  every 
prospect  of  a  successful  issue,  and  on  such 
pasturage  where  would  be  the  virility  of  the 
Bulls  of  Bashan? 

If  we  be  in  error,  we  shall  be  forgiven  at 
least  by  all  lovers  of  the  past,  and  what  to  the 
elderly  seems  the  olden  time.  Oh,  misery  for 
that  Moor  !  Hundreds,  thousands,  loved  it  as 
■well  as  we  did ;  for  though  it  ^rew  no  grain, 
many  a  glorious  crop  it  bore — shadows  that 
glided  like  ghosts — the  giants  stalked — the 
dwarfs  crept; — yet  sometimes  were  the  dwarfs 
uiore  formidable  than  the  giants,  lying  like 


blackamoors  before  your  ver)'  feet,  and  as  you 
stumbled  over  them  in  the  dark,  throttling  as 
as  if  they  sought  to  strangle  you,  and  then 
leaving  you  at  your  leisure  to  wipe  from  your 
mouth  the  mire  by  the  light  of  a  straggling 
star; — sunbeams  that  wrestled  with  the  sha- 
dows in  the  gloom — sometimes  clean  flung, 
and  then  they  cowered  into  the  heather,  and 
insinuated  themselves  into  the  earth  ;  some- 
times victorious,  and  then  how  they  capered 
in  the  lift,  ere  they  shivered  away — not  always 
without  a  hymn  of  thunder — in  behind  the 
clouds,  to  refresh  themselves  in  their  taber- 
nacle in  the  sky. 

Won't  you  be  done  with  this  Moor,  you  mo- 
nomaniac 1  IVot  for  yet  a  little  while — for  we 
see  Kitty  North  all  by  himself  in  the  heart  of 
it,  a  boy  apparently  about  the  age  of  twelve, 
and  happy  as  the  day  is  long,  though  it  is  the 
Longest  Day  in  all  the  year.  Aimless  he 
seems  to  be,  but  all  alive  as  a  grasshopper,  and 
is  leaping  like  a  two-year-old  across  the  hags. 
Were  he  to  tumble  in,  what  would  become  of 
the  personage  whom  Kean's  Biographer  would 
call  "  the  future  Christopher  the  First."  But 
no  fear  of  that — for  at  no  period  of  his  life  did 
he  ever  overrate  his  powers — and  he  knows 
now  his  bound  to  an  inch.  Cap,  bonnet,  hat, 
he  has  none;  and  his  yellow  hair,  dancing  on 
his  shoulders  like  a  mane,  gives  him  the  look 
of  a  precocious  lion's  whelp.  Leonine  too  is 
his  aspect,  yet  mild  withal;  and  but  for  a 
certain  fierceness  in  his  gambols,  you  would 
not  suspect  he  was  a  young  creature  of  prey. 
A  fowling-piece  is  in  his  left  hand,  and  in  his 
right  a  rod.  And  what  may  he  be  purposing 
to  shoot  1  Any  thing  full-fledged  that  may 
play  whirr  or  sugh.  Good  grouse-ground  this ; 
but  many  are  yet  in  the  egg,  and  the  rest  are 
but  cheepers — little  bigger  ihan  the  small 
brown  moorland  bird  that  goes  burling  up  wiih 
its  own  short  epithalamium,  and  drops  down 
on  the  rushes  still  as  a  stone.  Them  he  harms 
not  on  their  short  flight — but  marking  them 
down,  twirls  his  piece  like  a  fugleman,  and 
thinks  of  the  Twelfth.  Safer  methinks  wilt 
thou  be  a  score  or  two  yards  further  ofl^,  O 
Whawp  !  for  though  thy  young  are  yet  callow, 
Kit  is  beginning  to  think  they  may  shift  for 
themselves ;  and  that  long  bill  and  that  long 
neck,  and  those  long  legs  and  that  long  body 
— the  tout-cnscmbk  so  elegant,  so  graceful,  and 
so  wild — are  a  strong  temptation  to  the  trigger; 
— click — clack — whizz  —  phew  —  fire  — smoke 
and  thunder — head-ovcr-heels  topsy-turvy  goes 
the  poor  curlew — and  Kit  stands  over  him 
leaning  on  his  single-barrel,  with  a  stern  but 
somewhat  sad  aspect,  exulting  in  his  skill,  yet 
sorry  for  the  creature  whose  wild  cry  will  be 
heard  no  more. 

'Tis  an  oasis  in  the  desert.  That  green  spot 
is  called  a  quagmire — an  ugly  name  enough — 
but  itself  is  beautiful ;  for  it  diff'uses  its  own 
light  round  about  it,  like  a  star  vivifying  its 
halo.  The  sward  encircling  it  is  firm — and 
Kit  lays  him  down,  heedless  of  the  bird,  with 
eyes  fixed  on  the  oozing  spring.  How  fresh 
the  wild  cresses  !  His  very  eyes  are  drinking ! 
His  thirst  is  at  once  excited  and  satisfied  by 
looking  at  the  lustrous  leaves — composed  of 
cooling  light  without  spot  or  stain.     What 


OUR  PARISH. 


163 


ails  the  boy?  He  covers  his  face  with  his 
hands,  and  in  his  silence  sighs.  A  small  white 
hand,  with  its  fingers  spread,  rises  out  of  the 
spring,  as  if  it  were  beckoning  to  heaven  in 
prayer — and  then  is  sucked  slowly  in  again 
out  of  sight  with  a  gurgling  groan.  The 
spring  so  fresh  and  fair — so  beautiful  with  its 
cresses  and  many  another  water-loving  plant 
beside — is  changed  into  the  same  horrid  quag- 
mire it  was  that  day — a  holyday — three  years 
ago — when  racing  in  her  joy  Amy  Lewars 
blindly  ran  into  it,  among  her  blithe  com- 
panions, and  suddenly  perished.  Childhood, 
they  say,  soon  dries  its  tears,  and  soon  forgets. 
God  be  praised  for  all  his  goodness !  true  it  is 
that  on  the  cheek  of  childhood  tears  are  dried 
up  as  if  by  the  sunshine  of  joy  stealing  from 
on  high — but,  God  be  praised  for  all  his  good- 
ness !  false  it  is  that  the  heart  of  childhood  has 
not  a  long  memory,  for  in  a  moment  the 
mournful  past  revives  within  it — as  often  as 
the  joyful — sadness  becomes  sorrow,  sorrow 
grief,  and  grief  anguish,  as  now  it  is  with  the 
solitary  boy  seated  by  that  ghastly  spot  in  the 
middle  of  the  wide  moor. 

Away  he  flies,  and  he  is  humming  a  tune. 
But  what's  this?  A  merry-making  in  the 
moor?  Ay,  merry-making;  but  were  you  to 
take  part  in  it,  you  would  find  it  about  the 
hardest  work  that  ever  tried  the  strength  of 
your  spine.  'Tis  a  party  of  divotllaughters. 
The  people  in  the  parish  are  now  digging  their 
peats,  and  here  is  a  whole  household,  provident 
of  winter,  borrowing  fuel  from  the  moss. 
They  are  far  from  coals,  and  wood  is  intended 
by  nature  for  other  uses;  but  fire  in  peat  she 
dedicated  to  the  hearth,  and  there  it  burns  all 
over  Scotland,  Highland  and  Lowland,  far  and 
near,  at  many  a  holy  altar.  'Tis  the  mid-day 
hour  of  rest.  iSome  are  half-asleep,  some  yet 
eating,  some  making  a  sort  of  under-voiced, 
under-hand  love.  "Mr.  North!  Mr.  North' 
Mr.  North  !"  is  the  joyful  cry — horny-fists  first 
— downy-fists  next — and  after  heartiest  greet- 
ing. Master  Kitty  is  installed,  enthroned  on  a 
knowe.  Master  of  the  Ceremonies — and  in  good 
time  gives  them  a  song.  Then  "galliards  cry 
a  hari,  a  hall,"  and  hark  and  lo  !  preluded  by 
six  smacks — three  foursome  reels!  "Sic 
hirdum-dirdum  and  sic  din,"  on  the  sward,  to 
a  strathspey  frae  the  fiddle  o'  auld  blin'  Hugh 
Lyndsay,  the  itinerant  musicianer,  who  was 
noways  particular  about  the  number  of  his 
strings,  and  when  one,  or  even  two  snapped, 
used  to  play  away  at  pretty  much  of  the  same 
tune  with  redoubled  energy  and  variations. 
He  had  the  true  old  Niel-Gow  yell,  and  had  he 
played  on  for  ever,  folk  would  have  danced  on 
for  ever  till  they  had  all,  one  after  the  other, 
dropped  down  dead.     What  steps  ! 

"Who  -nail  try  me,"  cries  Kit,  "at  loup-the- 
barrows?"  "  I  will,"  quoth  Souple  Tam.  The 
barrows  are  laid — how  many  side  by  side  we 
fear  lo  say — for  we  have  become  sensitive  on 
our  veracity — on  a  beautiful  piece  of  spring}'- 
turf,  an  inclined  plane  with  length  sufficient 
for  a  run;  and  while  old  and  young  line  both 
sides  of  the  lane  near  the  loup,  stript  to  the 
sark  and  the  breeks,  Souple  Tam,  as  he  fondly 
thinks,  shows  the  way  to  win,  and  clears  them 
all  like  a  frog  or  a  roebuck.    "  Clear  the  way, 


clear  the  way  for  the  callant,  Kit's  coming!" 
cries  Ebenezer  Brackenrigg,  the  Elder,  a  douce 
man  now,  but  a  deevil  in  his  youth,  and  like 
"  a  waffo'  lichtnin'"  past  their  een,  Kit  clears 
the  barrows  a  foot  beyond  Souple  Tam,  and 
at  the  first  fly  is  declared  victor  by  acclamation. 
Oh,  our  unprophetic  soul!  did  the  day  indeed 
dawn — many  long  years  after  this  our  earliest 
great  conquest  yet  traditional  in  the  parish 
— that  ere  nightfall  witnessed  our  defeat  by 
— a  tailor!  The  Flying  Tailor  of  Etterick — 
the  Lying  Shepherd  thereof — would  they  had 
never  been  born — the  one  to  triumph  and  the 
other  to  record  that  triumph; — yet  let  us  be 
just  to  the  powers  of  our  rival — for  though  all 
the  world  knows  we  were  lame  when  we  leapt 
him,  long  past  our  prime,  had  been  wading  all 
day  in  the  Yarrow  with  some  stones-weight  ia 
our  creel,  and  allowed  him  a  yard, 
"Great  must  I  call  him,  for  he  vanquish'd  me." 
What  a  place  at  night  was  that  Moor!  At 
night !  That  is  a  most  indeterminate  mode  of 
expression,  for  there  are  nights  of  all  sorts  and 
sizes,  and  what  kind  of  a  night  do  we  mean? 
Not  a  mirk  night,  for  no  man  ever  walked  that 
moor  on  a  mirk  night,  except  one,  and  he, 
though  blind-fou,  was  drowned.  But  a  night 
may  be  dark  without  being  mirk,  with  or  with- 
out stars  ;  and  on  many  such  a  night  have  we, 
but  not  always  alone — who  was  with  us  you 
shall  never  know — threaded  our  way  with  no 
other  clue  than  that  of  evolving  recollections, 
originally  notices,  across  that  wilderness  of 
labyrinths,  fearlessly,  yet  at  times  with  a  beat- 
ing heart.  Our  companion  had  her  clue  too, 
one  in  her  pocket,  of  blue  worsted,  with  which 
she  kept  in  repair  all  the  stockings  belonging 
to  the  family,  and  one  in  her  memory,  of  green 
ethereal  silk,  which,  finer  far  than  any  spider's 
web,  she  let  out  as  she  tript  along  the  moor, 
and  on  her  homeward-way  she  felt,  by  some 
spiritual  touch,  the  invisible  lines,  along  which 
she  retript  as  safel}'  as  if  they  had  been  moon- 
beams. During  such  journeyings  we  never 
saw  the  moor,  how  then  can  you  expect  us  to 
describe  it? 

But  oftener  we  were  alone.  Earthquakes 
abroad  are  dreadful  occurrences,  and  blot  out 
the  obituary.  But  here  they  are  so  gentle  that 
the  heedless  multitude  never  feel  them,  and  on 
hearing  you  tell  of  them,  they  incredulously 
stare.  That  moor  made  no  show  of  religion, 
but  was  a  Quaker.  We  had  but  to  stand  still 
for  five  minutes  or  so,  no  easy  matter  then,  for 
we  were  more  restless  than  a  wave,  or  to  lie 
down  with  our  ear  to  the  ground,  and  the  spirit 
was  sure  to  move  the  old  Quaker,  who  forth 
with  began  to  preach  and  pray  and  sing 
Psalms.  How  he  moaned  at  times  as  if  his 
heart  were  breaking!  At  times,  as  if  some 
old  forgotten  sorrow  were  recalled,  how  he 
sighed  !  Then  recovering  his  self-possession, 
as  if  to  clear  his  voice,  he  gave  a  hem,  and 
then  a  short  nasty  cough  like  a  patient  in  a 
consumption.  Now  all  was  hush,  and  you 
might  have  supposed  he  had  fallen  asleep,  for 
in  that  hush  you  heard  what  seemed  an  inter- 
mitting snore.  When  all  at  once,  whew,  whew, 
whew,  as  if  he  were  whistling,  accompanied 
with  a  strange  rushing  sound  as  of  diving 
wings.    That  was  in  the  air— but  instanlljr 


164 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


after  you  heard  something  odder  still  in  the 
bog.  And  while  wondering,  and  of  your  won- 
der finding  no  end,  the  ground,  which  a  mo- 
ment before  had  felt  firm  as  a  road,  began  to 
shrink,  and  sink,  and  hesitate,  and  hurry,  and 
crumble,  and  mumble  all  around  you,  and  close 
up  to  your  very  feet — the  quagmires  gurgling 
as  if  choked — and  a  subterranean  voice  dis- 
tinctly articulating  Oh  !  Oh  !  Oh  ! 

We  have  heard  of  people  who  pretend  not 
to  believe  in  ghosts — geologists  who  know  how 
the  world  was  created  ;  but  will  they  explain 
that  moor?  And  how  happened  it  that  only 
by  nights  and  dark  nights  it  was  so  haunted  ? 
Beneath  a  wakeful  moon  and  unwinking  stars 
it  was  silent  as  a  frozen  sea.  You  listened 
then,  and  heard  but  the  grass  growing,  and 
beautiful  grass  it  was,  though  it  was  called 
coarse,  and  made  the  sweetest-scented  hay. 
What  crowds  of  bum-bees'  bykes — fuggies — 
did  the  scythe  not  reveal  as  it  heaped  up  the 
heavy  swathes — three  hundred  stone  to  the 
acre — by  guess — for  there  was  neither  weigh- 
ing nor  measuring  there  then-a-days,  but  all 
was  in  the  lump — and  there  the  rush-roped 
stacks  stood  all  the  winter  through,  that  they 
might  be  near  the  "eerie  outlan  cattle,"  on 
places  where  cart-wheel  never  circled,  nor 
axle-tree  creaked — nor  ever  car  of  antique 
make  trailed  its  low  load  along — for  the  horse 
would  have  been  laired.  We  knew  not  then 
at  all — and  now  we  but  imperfectlv  know — the 
cause  of  the  Beautiful.  Then  we  believed  the 
Beautiful  to  be  wholly  extern  ;  somethins:  we 
nad  nothing  to  do  with  but  to  look  at.  and  lo  ! 
t  shone  divinely  there  !  Happy  creed  if  false 
— for  in  it,  with  holiest  reverence,  we  blame- 
essly  adored  the  stars.  There  they  were  in 
millions  as  we  thought — every  one  brighter 
than  another,  when  by  chance  we  happened  to 
fix  on  any  individual  among  them,  that  we 
might  look  through  its  face  into  its  heart.  All 
above  gloriously  glittering,  all  below  a  blank. 
Our  body  here,  our  spirit  there — how  mean 
our  birth-place,  our  death-home  liow  magnifi- 
cent!  "Fear  God  and  keep  his  command- 
ments," said  a  small  still  voice — and  we  fell 
that  if  He  gave  us  strength  to  obey  that  law, 
we  should  live  for  ever  beyond  all  those  stars. 

But  were  there  no  Lochs  in  our  parish  1 
Yea — Four.  The  Little  Loch — the  White 
Loch — the  Black  Loch — and  the  Brother  Loch. 
Not  a  tree  on  the  banks  of  any  one  of  them — 
yet  he  had  been  a  blockhead  who  called  them 
bare.  Had  there  been  any  need  for  trees,  Na- 
ture would  have  sown  them  on  hills  she  so 
dearly  loved.  Nor  sheep  nor  cattle  were  ever 
heard  to  complain  of  those  pastures.  They 
bleated  and  they  lowed  as  cheerily  as  the  moor- 
land birdies  sang — and  how  cheerily  that  was 
nobody  knew  who  had  not  often  met  the  morn- 
ing on  the  brae,  and  shaken  hands  with  her  the 
rosy-fingered  like  two  familiar  friends.  No 
want  of  loun  places  there,  in  which  the  crea- 
tures could  lie  with  wool  or  hair  unrullled 
among  surrounding  storms.  For  the  hills  had 
been  dropt  from  the  hollow  of  His  hand  who 
"tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb" — and 
even  high  up,  where  you  mi^ht  see  tempest- 
stricken  stones— one  of  them  like  pillars — but 
placed  mf   there  by  human  art — there  were 


cozy  bields  in  wildest  weather,  and  some  into 
which  the  snow  was  never  known  to  drift, 
green  all  the  winter  through — perennial  nests. 
Such  was  the  nature  of  the  region  where  lay 
our  Four  Lochs.  They  were  some  quarter  of 
a  mile — some  half  mile — and  some  whole  mile 
— not  more — asunder ;  but  there  was  no  great 
height — and  we  have  a  hundred  times  climbed 
the  highest — from  which  they  could  be  all  seen 
at  once — so  cannily  were  they  embosomed,  s& 
needed  not  to  be  embowered. 

The  LiTTLF,  Lncii  was  the  rushiest  and  reedi 
est  little  rascal  that  ever  rustled,  and  he  was 
on  the  very  edge  of  the  .Moor.  That  he  hao 
fish  we  all  persisted  in  believing,  in  spite  of 
all  the  successless  angling  of  all  kinds  thaV. 
from  time  immemorial  had  assailed  his  sullen 
depths — but  what  a  place  for  powheads !  One 
continued  bank  of  them — while  yet  they  were 
but  eyes  in  the  spawn — encircled  it  instead  of 
water  lilies;  and  at  "the  season  of  the  year," 
by  throwing  in  a  few  stones  you  awoke  a 
croaking  that  would  have  silenced  a  rookerj-. 
In  the  early  part  of  the  century  a  pike  had 
been  seen  basking  in  the  shallows,  by  eye- 
measurement  about  ten  feet  long — but  fortu- 
nately he  had  never  been  hooke*!,  or  the  con- 
sequences would  have  been  fatal.  We  have 
seen  the  Little  Loch  alive  with  wild-ducks; 
but  it  was  almost  impossible  by  position  to  get 
a  shot  at  them — and  quite  impossible,  if  you 
did,  to  get  hold  of  the  slain.  Fro  himself — the 
best  doij  that  ever  dived — was  baflled  by  the 
multiplicity  of  impediments  and  obstructions 
— an(l  at  last  refused  to  take  the  water — sat 
down  and  howled  in  spiteful  rage.  Yet  Im- 
agination loved  the  Little  Loch,  and  so  did 
Hope.  We  have  conquered  it  in  sleep  both 
with  rod  and  gun — the  weight  of  bag  and  bas- 
ket has  wakened  us  out  of  dreams  of  murder 
that  never  were  realized — yet  once,  and  once 
only,  in  it  wecauirht  an  eel,  which  we  skinned, 
ami  wore  the  shrivel  for  many  a  day  round  our 
ankle — nor  is  it  a  vain  superstition — to  pre- 
serve it  from  sprains.  We  are  willing  the 
Little  Loch  should  be  drained;  but  you  would 
have  to  dig  a  fearsome  trench,  for  it  used  to 
have  no  bottom.  A  party  of  us — six — ascer- 
tained that  fact,  by  heaving  into  it  a  stone 
which  six-and-thirly  schoolboys  of  this  degene- 
rate age  could  not  have  lifted  from  its  moss- 
bed — and  though  we  watched  for  an  hour  not 
a  bubble  rose  to  the  surface.  It  used  some- 
times to  boil  like  a  pot  on  breathless  days,  for 
events  happening  in  fiireign  countries  disturb- 
ed the  spring,  and  the  torments  it  su/Tcred 
thousands  of  fathoms  below,  were  manifested 
above  in  turbulence  that  would  have  drowned 
a  schoolboy's  skiff. 

The  White  Loch — so  called  from  the  silver 
sand  of  its  shores — had  likewise  its  rushj-  and 
reedy  bogs ;  but  access  to  every  part  of  the 
main  body  was  unimpeded,  and  you  waded 
into  it,  gradually  deeper  and  deeper,  with  such 
a  delightful  descent,  that  up  to  the  arm-pits 
and  then  to  the  chin,  you  could  keep  touching 
the  sand  with  your  big-toe,  till  you  floated 
away  off  at  the  nail,  out  of  your  depth,  without 
for  a  little  while  discovering  that  it  was  incum- 
bent on  you,  for  sake  of  your  personal  safety, 
to  take  to  regular  swimming — and  then  how 


OUR  PARISH. 


165 


buoyant  was  the  milk-warm  water,  without  a 
wave  but  of  your  own  creating,  as  the  ripples 
went  circling  away  before  your  breast  or  your 
breath  !  It  was  absolutely  too  clear — for  with- 
out knitting  your  brows  you  could  not  see  it  on 
bright  airless  days — and  wondered  what  had 
become  of  it — when  all  at  once,  as  if  it  had 
been  that  very  moment  created  out  of  nothing, 
there  it  was  !  endued  with  some  novel  beauty 
— for  of  all  the  lochs  we  ever  knew — and  to 
be  so  simple  too — the  White  Loch  had  surely 
the  greatest  variety  of  expression — but  all 
within  the  cheerful — for  sadness  was  alien 
altogether  from  its  spirit,  and  the  gentle  Mere 
for  ever  wore  a  smile.  Swans — but  that  was 
but  once — our  own  eyes  had  seen  on  it — 
and  were  they  wild  or  were  they  tame  swans, 
certain  it  is  ihey  were  great  and  glorious  and 
lovely  creatures,  and  whiter  than  any  snow. 
No  house  was  within  sight,  and  they  had  no- 
thing to  fear — nor  did  they  look  afraid — sail- 
ing in  the  centre  of  the  loch — nor  did  we  see 
them  fly  away — for  we  lay  still  on  the  hillside 
till  in  the  twilight  we  should  not  have  known 
what  they  were,  and  we  left  them  there  among 
the  shadows  seemingly  asleep.  In  the  morn- 
ing they  were  gone,  and  perhaps  making  love 
in  some  foreign  land. 

The  Black  Loch  was  a  strange  misnomer 
for  one  so  fair — for  black  we  never  saw  him, 
except  it  might  be  for  an  hour  or  so  before 
thunder.  If  he  really  was  a  loch  of  colour  the 
original  taint  had  been  washed  out  of  him,  and 
he  might  have  shown  his  face  among  the  purest 
waters  of  Europe.  But  then  he  was  deep; 
and  knowing  that,  the  natives  had  named  him, 
in  no  unnatural  confusion  of  ideas,  the  Black 
Loch.  We  have  seen  wild-duck  eggs  five 
fathoms  down  so  distinctly  that  we  could  count 
them — and  though  that  is  not  a  bad  dive,  we 
have  brought  them  up,  one  in  our  mouth  and 
one  in  each  hand,  the  tenants  of  course  dead 
— nor  can  we  now  conjecture  what  sank  them 
there;  but  ornithologists  see  unaccountable 
sights,  and  they  only  who  are  not  ornitholo- 
gists disbelieve  Audubon  and  Wilson.  Two 
•features  had  the  Black  Loch  which  gave  it  to 
our  eyes  a  pre-eminence  in  beauty  over  the 
other  three — a  tongue  of  land  that  half  divided 
it,  and  never  on  hot  days  was  without  some 
cattle  grouped  on  its  very  point,  and  in  among 
the  water — and  a  cliff  on  which,  though  it  was 
not  very  loftv,  a  pair  of  falcons  had  their  nest. 
Yet  in  misty  weather,  when  its  head  was  hid- 
den, the  shrill  cry  seemed  to  come  from  a  great 
height.  There  were  some  ruins  too — tradition 
said  of  some  church  or  chapeL — that  had  been 
ruins  long  before  the  establishment  of  the  Pro- 
testant faith.  But  they  were  somewhat  re- 
mole,  and  likewise  somewhat  imaginary,  for 
stones  are  found  lying  strangely  distributed, 
and  those  looked  to  our  eyes  not  like  such  as 
builders  use,  but  to  have  been  dropped  there 
most  probably  from  the  moon. 

But  the  best  beloved,  if  not  the  most  beauti- 
ful, of  them  all  was  the  BnoTHF.n  Locit.  It 
mattered  not  what  was  his  disposition  of  ge- 
nius, every  one  of  us  boys,  however  different 
might  be  our  other  tastes,  preferred  it  far  be- 
yond the  rest,  and  for  once  that  we  visited  any 
of  them  we  visited  it  twenty  times,  nor  ever 


once  left  it  with  o«-wp.pointed  hopes  of  enjoy- 
ment. It  was  the  nearest,  and  therefore  mc^t 
within  our  power,  so  that  we  could  gallop  to  it 
on  shank's  naiggie,  well  on  in  the  afternoon, 
and  enjoy  what  seemed  a  long  day  of  delight, 
swift  as  flew  the  hours,  before  evening-prayers. 
Yet  was  it  remote  enough  to  make  us  always 
feel  that  our  race  thither  was  not  for  every  day 
— and  we  seldom  returned  home  without  an 
adventure.  It  was  the  largest  too  by  far  of  the 
Four — and  indeed  its  area  would  have  held 
the  waters  of  all  the  rest.  Then  there  was  a 
charm  to  our  heart  as  well  as  our  imagination 
in  its  name — for  tradition  assigned  it  on  ac- 
count of  three  brothers  that  perished  in  its 
waters — and  the  same  name  for  the  same  rea- 
son belongs  to  many  another  loch — and  to  one 
pool  on  almost  every  river.  But  above  all  it 
was  the  Loch  for  angling,  and  we  long  kept  to 
perch.  What  schools !  Not  that  they  were 
of  a  very  large  size — though  pretty  well — but 
hundreds  all  nearly  the  same  size  gladdened 
our  hearts  as  they  lay,  at  the  close  of  our 
sport,  in  separate  heaps  on  the  greensward- 
shore,  more  beautiful  out  of  all  sight  than  your 
silver  or  golden  fishes  in  a  glass-vase,  where 
one  appears  to  be  twenty,  and  the  delusive 
voracity  is  all  for  a  single  crumb.  No  bait  so 
killing  as  cowshairn-mawks,  fresh  from  their 
native  bed,  scooped  out  with  the  thumb.  He 
must  have  been  a  dear  friend  to  whom  in  a 
scarcity,  by  the  water-side,  when  the  corks 
were  dipping,  we  would  have  given  a  mawk. 
No  pike.  Therefore  the  trout  were  allowed  to 
gain  their  natural  size — and  that  seemed  to  be 
about  five  pounds — adolescents  not  unfrequent 
swam  two  or  three — and  you  seldom  or  never 
saw  the  smaller  fry.  But  few  were  the  days 
"  good  for  the  Brother  Loch."  Perch  rarely 
failed  you,  for  by  perseverance  you  were  sure 
to  fall  in  with  one  circumnatatory  school  or 
other,  and  to  do  murderous  work  among  them 
with  the  mawk,  from  the  schoolmaster  him- 
self inclusive  down  to  the  little  booby  of  the 
lowest  form.  Not  so  with  Trout.  We  have 
angled  ten  hours  a-day  for  half  a-week,  (during 
the  vacance,)  without  ever  getting  a  single 
rise,  nor  could  even  that  be  called  bad  sport, 
for  we  lived  in  momentary  expectation,  min- 
gled with  fear,  of  a  monster.  Better  far  from 
sunrise  to  sunset  never  to  move  a  fin,  than  oh ! 
me  miserable!  to  hook  a  huge  hero  with 
shoulders  like  a  hog— play  him  till  he  comes 
floating  side  up  close  to  the  shore,  and  then  to 
feel  the  feckless  fly  leave  his  lip  and  begin 
gamboling  in  the  air,  while  he  wallops  away 
back  into  his  native  element,  and  sinks  utterly 
and  for  evermore  into  the  dark  profound. 
Life  loses  at  such  a  moment  all  that  makes 
life  desirable — yet  strange!  the  wretch  lives 
on — and  has  not  the  heart  to  drown  himself, 
as  he  wrings  his  hands  and  curses  his  lot  and 
the  day  he  was  born.  But,  thank  Heaven,  that 
ghastly  fit  of  fancy  is  gone  by,  and  we  imagine 
one  of  those  dark,  scowling,  gusty,  almost  tem- 
pestuous days,  "prime  for  the  Brother  Loch." 
No  glare  or  glitter  on  the  water,  no  reflection 
of  fleecy  clouds,  but  a  black-blue  undulating 
swell,  at  times  turbulent— with  now  and  then 
a  breaking  wave— that  was  the  weather  in 
which  the  giants  fed,  showing  their  backs  like- 


166 


EECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


dolphins  within  a  fathom  of  the  shore,  and 
sucking  in  the  red  heckle  among  your  very 
feet.  Not  an  insect  in  the  air,  yet  then  the  lly 
was  all  the  rage.  This  is  a  mystery,  for  you 
could  do  nothing  with  the  worm.  Oh  !  that 
we  had  then  known  the  science  of  the  spin- 
ning minnow  !  But  we  were  then  but  an  ap- 
prentice— who  are  now  Emeritus  Grand  Mas- 
ter. Yet  at  this  distance  of  lime — half  a 
century  and  more — it  is  impious  to  repine. 
Uut  was  not  always  to  be  got;  and  on  such 
days  a  three-haired  snood  did  the  business — 
for  they  were  bold  as  lions,  and  rashly  rushed 
on  death.  The  gleam  of  the  yellow-worsted 
body  with  star-y-poiiited  tail  maddened  them 
with  desire — no  dallying  with  tlie  gay-deceiver 
— they  licked  him  in — they  gorged  him — and 
while  satiating  their  passion  got  involved  in 
inextricable  fate.  You  have  seen  a  single 
strong  horse  ploughing  up  hill.  How  he  sets 
his  brisket  to  it — and  snuves  along — as  the 
furrows  fall  in  beautiful  regularity  from  the 
gliding  share.  So  snuved  along  the  Monarch 
of  the  Mere — or  the  heir-apparent — or  heir- 
presumptive — or  some  other  branch  of  the 
royal  family — while  our  line  kept  steadily  cut- 
ting the  waves,  and  our  rod  enclosing  some 
new  segment  of  the  sky. 

But  many  another  pastime  we  pursued  upon 
those  pastoral  hills,  for  even  angling  has  its  due 
measure,  and  unless  that  be  preserved,  the  pas- 
sion wastes  itself  into  lassitude,  or  waxes  into 
disease.  "  I  would  not  angle  alway,"  thinks  the 
wise  boy — "ofl'  to  some  other  game  we  alto- 
gether Ilew."  Never  were  there  such  hills  for 
hare  and  hounds.  There  couched  many  a 
pu.>scy — and  tluMC  Bob  Howie's  famous  Tick- 
ler— ihe  Grew  of  all  Grews — first  stained  his 
flues  in  the  blood  of  the  Fur.  But  there  is  no 
coursing  between  April  and  October — and 
during  the  intervening  mcmths  we  used  to 
have  many  a  hunt  on  foot,  without  dogs,  after 
the  leverets.  We  all  belonged  to  the  High 
School  indeed,  and  here  was  its  playground. 
Cricket  we  had  then  never  heard  of;  but  there 
was  ample  room  and  verge  enough  for  foot- 
ball. Our  prime  delight,  however,  was  the 
chase.  We  were  all  in  perpetual  training, 
and  in  such  wind  that  there  were  no  bellows 
to  mend  after  a  flight  of  miles.  We  circled 
the  Lochs.  Plashing  through  the  marishes 
we  strained  winding  up  the  hillsides,  till  on 
the  cairn  called  a  beacon  that  crowned  the 
loftiest  summit  of  the  range,  we  stood  and 
waved  defiance  to  our  pursuers  scattered 
wide  and  far  below,  for  'twas  a  Deer  hunt. 
Then  we  became  cavaliers.  We  caught  the 
long-maned  and  long-tailed  colts,  and  mount- 
ing bare-backed,  with  rush  helmets  and  scgg 
sabres  charged  the  nowte  till  the  stirks  were 
scattered,  and  the  lowing  lord  of  herds  him- 
self taken  captive,  as  he  stood  pawing  in  a 
nook  with  his  nose  to  the  ground  and  eyes 
of  fire.  That  was  the  riding-school  in  which 
we  learned  to  witch  the  world  with  noble 
horsemanship.  We  thus  got  confirmed  in 
that  fine,  easy,  unconstrained,  natural  scat, 
which  we  carried  with  us  into  the  saddle 
when  we  were  required  to  handle  the  bridle 
instead  of  the  mane.  'Tis  right  to  hold  on  by 
ihe   knees,  but   equally  so  to  hold  on  by  the 


calves  of  the  legs  and  the  heels.  The  modern 
system  of  turning  out  the  toes,  and  sticking 
out  the  legs  as  if  they  were  cork  or  timber,  is 
at  once  dangerous  and  ridiculous ;  hence  in 
our  cavalry  the  men  got  unhorsed  in  every 
charge.  On  pony-back  we  used  to  make  the 
soles  of  our  feet  smack  together  below  the 
belly,  for  quadruped  and  biped  were  both  un- 
shod, and  hoof  needed  no  iron  on  that  stone- 
less  sward.  But  the  biggest  fun  of  all  was  to 
"grup  the  auld  mare,"  and  ride  her  sextuple, 
the  tallest  boy  sitting  on  the  neck,  and  the 
shortest  on  the  rump  with  his  face  to  the  tail, 
and  holding  on  by  that  fundamental  feature  by 
which  the  urchin  tooled  her  along  as  by  a 
tiller.  How  the  silly  foal  whinnied,  as  with 
light-gathered  steps  he  accompanied  in  circles 
his  populous  parent,  and  seemed  almost  to 
doubt  her  identity,  till  one  by  one  we  slipped 
ofl'  over  her  hurdies,  and  let  him  take  a  suck  ! 
But  what  comet  is  yon  in  the  sky — "with  fear 
of  change  perplexing  mallards  ]"  A  Flying 
Dragon.  Of  many  degrees  is  his  tail,  with  a 
tuft  like  that  of  Taurus  terrified  by  Ihe  sudden 
entrance  of  the  Sun  into  his  sign.  Up  goes 
Sandy  Donald's  rusty  and  rimless  beaver  as  a 
messenger  to  the  Celestial.  He  obeys,  and 
stooping  his  head,  descends  with  many  diverse 
divings,  and  buries  his  beak  in  the  earth.  The 
feathered  kite  quails  and  is  cowed  by  him  of 
paper,  and  there  is  a  scampering  of  cattle  on  a 
hundred  hills. 

The  Brother  Loch  saw  annually  another 
sight,  when  on  the  Green-Brae  was  pitched  a 
Tent — a  snow-white  Pyramid,  gathering  to  itself 
all  the  sunshine.  There  lords  and  ladies,  and 
kniL'hts  and  squires, celebrated  Old  May-day,and 
half  the  parish  flocked  to  the  Festival.  The  Earl 
ofEglintoun,  anil  Sir  Michael  Shaw  iSie wart,  and 
old  fSir  John  of  Pi>lloc,  and  Pollock  of  that  Ilk, 
and  other  heads  of  illustrious  houses,  with  their 
wives  and  daughters,  a  beautiful  show,  did  nol 
disdain  them  of  low  degree,  but  kept  open  table 
in  the  moor;  and  would  you  believe  it,  high- 
born youths  and  maidens  mini^.tered  at  the 
board  to  cottage  lads  and  lasses,  whose  sun- 
burnt faces  hardly  dared  to  smile,  under  awe 
of  that  courtsey — yet  whenever  they  looked  up 
there  was  happiness  in  their  eyes.  The  young 
ladies  were  all  arrayed  in  green;  and  after 
the  feast,  they  took  bows  and  arrows  in  their 
lily  hands,  and  shot  at  a  target  in  a  style  that 
would  have  gladdened  the  heart  of  Maid  .Marian 
— nay,  of  Rubin  himself; — and  oni'  surpassing 
bright — the  Star  of  Ayr — >he  held  a  hawk  on 
her  wrist — a  tercel  gentle — after  the  fashion 
of  the  olden  time;  and  ever  as  she  moved  her 
arm  you  heard  the  chiming  of  silver  bells. 
.\nd  her  brother — gay  and  gallant  as  Sir  Tris- 
trem — he  blew  his  tasseled  bugle — so  sweet, 
so  pure,  so  wild  the  music,  that  when  he  ceased 
to  breathe,  the  far-ofl" repeated  echoes,  faint  and 
dim,  you  thought  died  away  in  heaven,  like  an 
anccel's  voice. 

Was  it  not  a  Paragon  of  a  Parish  1  But  we 
have  not  told  you  one  half  of  its  charms.  There 
was  a  charm  in  every  nook — and  Youth  was 
the  master  of  the  spell.  Small  magicians  were 
we  in  size,  but  we  were  great  in  might.  We 
had  but  to  open  our  eyes  in  the  morning,  and 
at  one  look  all  nature  was  beautiful.     We  have 


OUR  PARISH. 


167 


said  nothing  about  the  Burns.  The  chief  was 
the  Yearn — endearingly  called  the  Humby, 
from  a  farm  near  the  Manse,  and  belonging  to 
the  minister.  Its  chief  source  was,  we  believe, 
the  Brother  Loch.  But  it  whimpled  with  such 
an  infantine  voice  from  the  lucid  bay,  which 
then  knew  nor  sluice  nor  dam,  that  for  a  while 
it  was  scarcely  even  a  rill,  and  you  had  to  seek 
for  it  among  the  heather.  In  doing  so,  ten  to 
one  some  brooding  birdie  fluttered  off  her  nest 
— but  not  till  your  next  step  would  have 
crushed  them  all — or  perhaps — but  he  had  no 
nest  there — a  snipe.  There  it  is — betrayed  by 
a  line  of  livelier  verdure.  Erelong  it  sparkled 
within  banks  of  its  own  and  "braes  of  green 
bracken,"  and  as  you  footed  along,  shoals  of 
minnows,  and  perhaps  a  small  trout  or  two, 
brastled  away  to  the  other  side  of  the  shallow, 
and  hid  themselves  in  the  shadows.  'Tis  a 
pretty  rill  now — nor  any  longer  mute;  andyou 
hear  it  murmur.  It  has  acquired  confidence 
on  its  Ci)ur.se,  and  has  formed  itself  into  its  first 
pool — a  waterfall,  three  feet  high,  with  its  own 
tiny  rocks,  and  a  single  birk — no,  it  is  a  rowan 
— too  young  yet  to  bear  berries — else  might  a 
child  pluck  the  highest  cluster.  Imperceptibly, 
insensibly,  it  grows  just  like  life.  The  Burn 
is  now  in  his  boyhood;  and  a  bold,  bright  boy 
he  is — dancing  and  singing — nor  heeding 
■which  way  he  goes  along  the  wild,  any  more 
than  that  wee  rosy-cheeked,  flaxen-headed  girl 
seems  to  heed,  who  drops  you  a  curtsey,  and  on 
being  asked  by  you,  with  your  hand  on  her 
hair,  where  she  is  going,  answers  wi'  a  soft 
Scottish  accent — ah!  how  sweet — "owre  the 
hill  to  see  my  Mither."  Is  that  a  house?  No 
— a  fauld.  For  this  is  the  Washing-Pool. 
Look  around  you,  and  j'ou  never  saw  such 
perfectly  white  sheep.  They  are  Cheviots ; 
for  the  black-faces  are  on  the  higher  hills  to 
the  north  of  the  moor.  We  see  a  few  rigs  of 
flax — and  "lint  is  in  the  bell" — the  steeping 
■whereof  will  sadly  annoy  the  bit  burnie,  but 
poor  people  must  spin — and  as  this  is  not  the 
season,  we  will  think  of  nothing  that  can  pol- 
lute his  limpid  waters.  Symptoms  of  hns- 
bandry !  Potato-shaws  luxuriating  on  lazy 
beds,  and  a  small  field  with  alternate  rigs  of 
oats  and  barley.  Yes,  that  is  a  house — "an 
auld  clay  bigging" — in  such  Robin  Burns  was 
born — in  such  was  rocked  the  cradle  of  Pol- 
lok.  We  think  we  hear  two  separate  liquid 
voices — and  we  are  right — for  from  the  flats 
beyond  Floak,  and  away  towards  Kingswelis, 
comes  another  yet  wilder  burnie,  and  they 
meet  in  one  at  the  head  of  what  you  would 
probably  call  a  meadow,  but  which  we  call  a 
holm.  There  seems  to  be  more  arable  land 
hereabouts  than  a  stranger  could  have  had  an)- 
idea  of;  but  it  is  a  long  time  since  the  plough- 
share traced  those  almost  obliterated  furrows 
on  the  hillside;  and  such  cultivation  is  now 
■wisely  confined,  you  observe,  to  the  lower 
lands.  We  fear  the  Yearn — for  that  is  his 
name  now — heretofore  he  was  anonymous — 
is  about  to  get  flat.  But  we  must  not  grudge 
him  a  slumber  or  a  sleep  among  the  saughs, 
lulled  by  the  murmur  of  millions  of  humble 
bees — we  speak  within  bounds — on  their 
honied  flovverage.  We  are  confusing  the  sea- 
sons, fc  a  few  minutes  ago  we  spoke  of  "lint 


being  in  the  bell;"  but  in  imagination's  dream 
how  sweetly  do  the  seasons  all  slide  into  one 
another  !  After  sleep  comes  play,  and  see  and 
hear  now  how  the  merry  Yearn  goes  tumbling 
over  rocks,  nor  will  rest  in  any  one  linn,  but 
impatient  of  each  beautiful  prison  in  which 
one  would  think  he  might  lie  a  willing  thrall, 
hurries  on  as  if  he  were  racing  against  time, 
nor  casts  a  look  at  the  human  dwellings  now 
more  frequent  near  his  sides.  But  he  will  be 
stopped  by  and  by,  whether  he  will  or  no ;  for 
there,  if  we  be  not  much  mistaken,  there  is  a 
mill.  But  the  wheel  is  at  rest — the  sluice  on 
the  lade  is  down — with  the  lade  he  has  nothing 
more  to  do  than  to  fill  it;  and  with  undimin- 
ished volume  he  wends  round  the  miller's  gar- 
den— you  see  Dusty  Jacket  is  a  florist — and 
now  is  hidden  in  a  dell ;  but  a  dell  without  any 
rocks.  'Tis  but  some  hundred  yards  across 
from  bank  to  brae — and  as  you  angle  along  on 
either  side,  the  sheep  and  lambs  are  bleating 
high  overhead;  for  tliough  the  braes  are  steep, 
they  are  all  intersected  with  sheep-walks,  and 
ever  and  anon  among  the  broom  and  the 
brackens  are  little  platforms  of  close-nibbled 
greensward,  yet  not  bare — and  noAvhere  else  is 
the  pasturage  more  succulent — nor  do  the 
young  creatures  not  care  to  taste  the  primroses, 
though  were  they  to  live  entirely  upon  them, 
they  could  not  keep  down  the  profusion — so 
thickly  studded  in  places  are  the  constellations 
among  sprinklings  of  single  stars.  Here  the 
hill-blackbird  builds — and  here  you  know  why 
Scotland  is  called  the  lintie's  land.  What 
bird  lilts  like  the  lintwhitel  The  lark  alone. 
But  here  there  are  no  larks — a  little  further 
down  and  you  will  hear  one  ascending  or  de- 
scending over  almost  every  field  of  grass  or 
of  the  tender  braird.  Down  the  dell  before  you. 
flitting  from  stone  to  stone,  on  short  flight 
seeks  the  water-pyet — seemingly  a  witless 
creature  with  its  bonnie  white  breast — to  wile 
you  away  from  the  crevice,  even  within  the 
waterfall,  that  holds  its  young — or  with  a  cock 
of  her  tail  she  dips  and  disappears.  There  is 
grace  in  the  glancing  sandpiper — nor,  though 
somewhat  fantastical,  is  the  water-wagtail  in- 
elegant— either  belle  or  beau — an  outlandish 
bird  that  makes  himself  at  home  wherever  he 
goes,  and,  vain  as  he  looks,  is  contented  if  but 
one  admire  him  in  a  solitary  place — though  it 
is  true  that  we  have  seen  them  in  half  dozens 
on  the  midden  in  front  of  the  cottage  door. 
The  blue  slip  of  sky  overhead  has  been  gra- 
dually widening,  and  the  dell  is  done.  Is  that 
snow  ]  A  bleachfield.  Lasses  can  bleach 
their  own  linen  on  the  green  near  the  pool, 
"  atween  twa  flowery  braes,"  as  Allan  has  so 
sweetly  sung,  in  his  truly  Scottish  pastoral  the 
Gentle  Shepherd.  But  even  they  could  not 
well  do  without  bleachfields  on  a  larger  scale, 
else  dingy  would  be  their  smocks  and  their 
wedding-sheets.  Therefore  there  is  beauty  in 
a  bleachfield,  and  in  none  more  than  in  Bell's- 
Meadows.  But  where  is  the  Burn  ?  They 
have  stolen  him  out  of  his  bed,  and,  alas! 
nothing  but  stones  !  Gather  up  your  flies,  and 
away  down  to  yonder  grove.  There  he  is  like 
one  risen  from  the  dead;  and  how  joyful  his 
resurrection!     All  the  way  from  this  do'n'n  to 


168 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


and  the  burn  has  become  a  stream.  You 
wade  now'through  longrer  grass — sometimes 
even  up  to  the  knees ;  and  half-forgetting  pas- 
toral life,  you  ejaculate  "  Speed  the  plough  !" 
Whitewashed  houses — but  still  thatched — look 
down  on  you  from  among  trees,  that  shelter 
them  in  front;  while  behind  is  an  encampment 
of  stacks,  and  on  each  side  a  line  of  otlices,  so 
that  they  are  snug  in  every  ivind  that  blows. 
The  Auld  Brigg  is  gone,  which  is  a  pity;  for 
though  the  turn  was  perilous  sharp,  time  had 
so  coloured  it,  that  in  a  sunny  shower  we  have 
mistaken  it  for  a  rainbow.  That's  Humbie 
House,  God  bless  it !  and  though  we  cannot 
here  with  our  bodily  sense  see  the  Manse,  with 
our  spiritual  eye  we  can  see  it  anywhere. 
Ay  !  there  is  the  cock  on  the  Kirk-spire  !  The 
wind  we  see  has  shifted  to  the  south ;  and  ere 
we  reach  the  Cart,  we  shall  have  to  stuff  our 
pockets.  The  Carl! — ay,  the  river  Cart — not 
that  on  which  pretty  Paisley  stands,  but  the 
Black  Cart,  beloved  by  us  chiefly  for  sake  of 
Cath-Cart  Castle,  which,  when  a  collegian  at 
Glasgow,  we  visited  every  Play-Friday,  and 
deepened  the  ivy  on  its  walls  with  our  first 
sombre  dreams.  The  scenery  of  the  Yearn 
becomes  even  silvan  now;  and  though  still 
sweet  it  murmurs  to  our  ear,  they  no  hmger 
sink  into  our  hearts.  So  let  it  mingle  with  the 
Cart,  and  the  Cart  with  the  Clyde,  and  the 
Clyde  widen  away  in  all  his  majesty,  till  the 
river  becomes  a  firth,  and  the  firth  the  sea; — 
but  we  shut  our  eyes,  and  relapse  into  the 
vision  that  showed  us  the  solitary  region  dear- 
est to  our  imagination  and  our  hearts,  and 
opening  them  on  completion  of  the  charm  that 
works  wiihin  the  spirit  when  no  daylight  is 
there,  rejoice  to  find  ourselves  again  sole-sit- 
ting on  the  Green-Brae  above  the  Brother  Loch. 
Such  is  an  ofl-hand  picture  of  Our  Parish — 
pray,  give  us  one  of  yours,  that  both  may  gain 
by  comiiarison.  But  is  ours  a  true  picture? 
True  as  Holy  Writ — false  as  any  fiction  in 
an  Arabian  tale.  How  is  this  1  Perception, 
memory,  imagination,  are  all  modes — states 
of  mind.  But  mind,  as  we  said  before,  is  one 
substance,  and  matter  another;  and  mind  ne- 
ver deals  with  matter  without  metamorphosing 
it  like  a  mythologist.  Thus  truth  and  false- 
hood, reality  and  fiction,  become  all  one  and 


the  same ;  for  they  are  so  essentially  blended, 
that  we  defy  you  to  show  what  is  biblical — 
what  apocryphal — and  what  pure  romance. 
How  we  transpose  and  dislocate  while  we 
limn  in  aerial  colours  !  Where  tree  never 
grew  we  drop  it  down  centuries  old — or  we 
tear  out  the  gnarled  oak  by  the  roots,  and 
steep  what  was  once  his  shadow  in  sunshine 
— hills  sink  at  a  touch,  or  at  a  beck  mouiitains 
rise  ;  yet  amidst  ail  those  fluctuations  the  spi- 
rit of  the  place  remains  the  same;  for  in  that 
spirit  has  imagination  all  along  been  working, 
and  boon  nature  smiles  on  her  son  as  he  imi- 
tates her  creations — but  "hers  are  heavenly, 
his  an  empty  dream." 

Where  lies  Our  Parish,  and  what  is  its 
name  1  Seek,  and  you  will  find  it  either  in 
Renfrewshire,  or  in  Utopia,  or  in  the  Moon. 
As  for  its  name,  men  call  it  the  Mcarns. 
MCulloch,  the  great  Glasgow  painter — and 
in  Scotland  he  has  no  superior — will  ]ierhaps 
accompany  you  to  what  once  was  the  Moor. 
All  the  Four  Lochs,  we  understand,  are  there 
still;  but  the  Little  Loch  transmogrified  into 
an  auxiliar  appurtenance  to  some  cursed 
Wark — the  Brother  Loch  much  exhausted  by 
daily  drains  upon  him  by  we  know  not  what 
wretch — the  White  Loch  lurched — and  the 
Black  Loch  of  a  ghastly  blue,  criieliy  culti- 
vated all  close  round  the  brim.  From  his 
moor 

"The  [Mirting  genius  is  with  eighing  sent;" 
but  sometimes,  on  blear-eyed  days,  he  is  seen 
disconsolately  sitting  in  some  yet  mossy  spot 
among  the  ruins  of  his  ancient  reign.  Thai 
painter  has  studied  the  aspect  of  the  Old  For- 
lorn, and  lias  shown  it  more  than  once  on  bits 
of  canvas  not  a  foot  long;  and  such  pictures 
will  survive  after  the  Ghost  of  the  Genius  has 
bade  farewell  to  the  ruined  solitudes  he  had 
haunted  ever  since  the  flood,  or  been  laid  be- 
neath the  yet  unprofaned  Green-Brae,  above 
the  Brother  Loch,  whence  we  devoutly  trust 
he  will  reissue,  though  ages  may  have  to 
elapse,  to  see  all  his  quagmires  in  their  pri- 
meval glor}-,  and  all  his  hags  more  hideously 
beautiful,  as  they  yawn  back  again  into  their 
former  selves,  frgwning  over  the  burial  in 
their  bottoms  of  all  the  harvests  that  had 
dared  to  ripen  above  their  heads. 


MAY-DAY. 


Atit  thou  beautiful,  as  of  old,  0  wild,  moor- 
land, silvan,  and  pastoral  Parish!  the  Para- 
dise in  which  our  spirit  dwelt  beneath  the 
glorious  dawning  of  life — can  it  be,  beloved 
world  of  boyhood,  that  thou  art  indeed  beauti- 
ful as  of  old  1  Though  round  and  round  thy 
boundaries  in  half  an  hour  could  fly  the  flap- 
ping dove — though  the  martens,  wheeling  to 
and  fro  that  ivied  and  wall-tlowered  ruin  of  a 
Castle,  central  in  its  own  domain,  seem  in 
their  morr  distant  flight  to  glance  their  cres- 
cent wiags  over  a  vale  rejoicing  apart  in  an- 


other kirkspire,  yet  how  rich  in  streams,  and 
rivulets,  and  rills,  each  with  its  own  peculiar 
murmur — art  Thou  with  thy  bold  bleak  ex- 
posure, sloping  upwards  in  ever  lustrous  un- 
dulations to  the  portals  of  the  East?  How 
endless  the  interchange  of  woods  and  mea- 
dows, glens,  dells,  and  broomy  nooks,  without 
number,  among  thy  banks  and  braes!  And 
then  of  human  dwellings — how  rises  the 
smoke,  ever  and  anon,  into  the  sky,  all  neigh- 
bouring on  each  other,  so  that  the  cock-crow 
is  heard  from  homestead  to  homestead— while 


MAY-DAY. 


169 


as  you  wander  onwards,  each  roof  still  rises 
unexpected!}' — and  as  solitary,  as  if  it  had 
been  far  remote.  Fairest  of  Scotland's  thou- 
sand parishes — neither  Highland,  nor  Lowland 
— but  undulating — let  us  again  use  the  de- 
scriptive word — like  the  sea  in  sunset  after  a 
day  of  storms — yes,  Heaven's  blessing  be  upon 
thee  !     Thou  art  indeed  beautiful  as  of  old ! 

The  same  heavens !  More  blue  than  any 
colour  that  tinges  the  flowers  of  earth — like 
the  violet  veins  of  a  virgin's  bosom.  The 
stillness  of  those  lofty  clouds  makes  them  seem 
whiter  than  the  snow.  Return, O  lark!  to  thy 
grassy  nest,  in  the  furrow  of  the  green  brairded 
corn,  for  thy  brooding  mate  can  no  longer  hear 
thee  soaring  in  the  sky.  Methinks  there  is 
little  or  no  change  on  these  coppice-woods, 
with  their  full  budding  branches  all  impatient 
for  the  spring.  Yet  twice  have  axe  and  bill- 
hook levelled  them  with  the  mossy  stones, 
since  among  the  broomy  and  briary  knolls  we 
sought  the  gray  linnet's  nest,  or  wondered  to 
spy,''among  the  rustling  leaves,  the  robin  red- 
breast, seemingly  forgetful  of  his  winter  bene- 
factor, man.  Surely  there  were  trees  here  in 
former  times,  that  now  are  gone — tall,  far- 
spreading  single  trees,  in  whose  shade  used  to 
lie  the  ruminating  cattle,  with  the  small  herd- 
girl  asleep.  Gone  are  they,  and  dimly  remem- 
bered as  the  uncertain  shadows  of  dreams  ; 
yet  not  more  forgotten  than  some  living  beings 
with  whom  our  infancy  and  boyhood  held  con- 
verse— whose  voices,  laughter,  eyes,  forehead 
— hands  so  often  grasped — arms  linked  in  ours 
as  we  danced  along  the  braes — have  long 
ceased  to  be  more  than  images  tind  echoes,  in- 
capable of  commanding  so  much  as  one  single 
tear.  Alas !  for  the  treachery  of  memory  to 
all  the  holiest  human  affections,  when  beguiled 
by  the  slow  but  sure  sorcery  of  time. 

It  is  Mat-Day,  and  we  shall  be  happy  as  the 
season.  What  although  some  sad  and  solemn 
thoughts  come  suddenly  across  us,  the  day  is 
not  at  nightfall  felt  to  have  been  the  less  de- 
lightful, because  shadows  now  and  then  be- 
dimmcd  it,  and  moments  almost  mournful,  of 
an  unhymning  hush,  took  possession  of  field 
or  forest.  We  are  all  alone — a  solitary  pedes- 
trian ;  and  obeying  the  fine  impulses  of  a  will, 
whose  motives  are  changeable  as  the  came- 
leon's  hues,  our  feet  shall  bear  us  glancingly 
along  to  the  merrj'  music  of  streams — or  linger 
by  the  silent  shores  of  lochs — or  upon  the  hill- 
summit  pause,  ourselves  the  only  spectator  of 
a  panorama  painted  by  Spring,  for  our  sole  de- 
light— or  plunge  into  the  old  wood's  magnifi- 
cent exclusion  from  sky — where  at  mid-sum- 
mer, day  is  as  night — though  not  so  now,  for 
this  is  the  season  of  buds  and  blossoms ;  and 
the  cushat's  nest  is  yet  visible  on  the  half-leafed 
boughs,  and  the  sunshine  streams  in  upon  the 
ground-flowers,  that  in  another  month  will  be 
cold  and  pale  in  the  forest  gloom,  almost  as 
those  that  bedeck  the  dead  when  the  vault  door 
is  closed  and  all  is  silence. 

What!  shall  we  linger  here  within  a  little 
mile  of  the  Maxse,  wherein  and  among  its 
pleasant  bounds  our  boyish  life  glided  mur- 
muring away,  like  a  stream  that  never,  till  it 
leaves  its  native  hills,  knows  taint  or  pollution, 
and  not  hasten  on  to  the  dell,  in  which  nest- 
22 


like  it  is  built,  and  guarded  by  some  wonderful 
felicity  of  situation  equally  against  all  the 
winds  ?  No.  Thither  as  yet  have  we  not 
courage  to  direct  our  footsteps — for  that  vene- 
rable Man  has  long  been  dead — not  one  of 
his  ancient  household  now  remains  on  earth. 
There  the  change,  though  it  was  gradual  and 
unpainful,  according  to  the  gentlest  laws  of 
nature,  has  been  entire  and  complete.  The 
"  old  familiar  faces"  we  can  dream  of,  but  ne- 
ver more  shall  see — and  the  voices  that  are 
now  heard  within  those  walls,  what  can  they 
ever  be  to  us,  when  we  would  fain  listen  in  the 
silence  of  our  spirit  to  the  echoes  of  departed 
years?  It  is  an  appalling  trial  to  approach  a 
place  where  once  we  have  been  happier — hap- 
pier far  than  ever  we  can  be  on  this  earth 
again  ;  and  a  worse  evil  doth  it  seem  to  our 
imagination  to  return  to  Paradise,  with  a 
changed  and  saddened  heart,  than  at  first  to  be 
driven  from  it  into  the  outer  world,  if  still  per- 
mitted to  carry  thither  something  of  that  spirit 
that  had  glorified  our  prime. 

But  yonder,  we  see,  yet  towers  the  Sycamore 
on  the  crown  of  the  hill — the  first  great  Tree 
in  the  parish  that  used  to  get  green ;  for  stony 
as  seems  the  hard  glebe,  constricted  by  its  bare 
and  gnarled  roots,  they  draw  sustenance  from 
afar;  and  not  another  knoll  ou  which  the  sun 
so  delights  to  pour  his  beams.  Weeks  before 
any  other  Sycamore,  and  almost  as  early  as 
the  alder  or  the  birch — the  Glory  of  Mount 
Pleasant,  for  so  we  schoolboys  called  it,  un- 
folded itself  like  a  banner.  You  could  then  see 
only  the  low  windows  of  the  dwelling — for 
eaves,  roof,  and  chimneys  all  disappeared — 
and  then,  when  you  stood  beneath,  was  not  the 
sound  of  the  bees  like  the  very  sound  of  the 
sea  itself,  continuous,  unabating,  all  day  long 
unto  evening,  when,  as  if  the  tide  of  life  had 
ebbed,  there  was  a  perfect  silence ! 

MorxT  Pleasant  !  well  indeed  dost  thou 
deserve  the  name,  bestowed  on  thee  perhaps 
long  ago,  not  by  any  one  of  the  humble  pro- 
prietors, but  by  the  general  voice  of  praise,  all 
eyes  being  won  by  thy  cheerful  beauty.  For 
from  that  shaded  platform,  what  a  sweet  vision, 
of  fields  and  meadows,  knolls,  braes,  and  hills, 
uncertain  gleamings  of  a  river,  the  smoke  of 
many  houses,  and  glittering  perhaps  in  the 
sunshine,  the  spire  of  the  House  of  God!  To 
have  seen  Adam  Morrison,  the  Elder,  sitting 
with  his  solemn,  his  austere  Sabbath  face,  be- 
neath the  pulpit,  with  his  expressive  eyes  fixed 
on  the  Preacher,  you  could  not  but  have 
judged  him  to  be  a  man  of  a  stern  character 
and  austere  demeanour.  To  have  seen  him 
at  labour  on  the  working-days,  you  might 
almost  have  thought  him  the  serf  of  some 
tyrant  lord,  for  into  all  the  toils  of  the  field  he 
carried  the  force  of  a  mind  that  would  suffer 
nothing  to  be  undone  that  strength  and  skill 
could  achieve  ;  but  within  the  humble  porch 
of  his  own  house,  beside  his  own  board,  and 
his  own  fireside,  he  was  a  man  to  be  kindly 
esteemed  by  his  guests,  by  his  own  family  ten- 
derly and  reverently  beloved.  His  wife  was 
the  comeliest  matron  in  the  parish,  a  woman 
of  active  habits  and  a  strong  mind,  but  tem- 
pering the  natural  sternness  of  her  husband's 
character  with  that  genial  and  jocund  cheer 


170 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


fulness,  that  of  all  the  lesser  virtues  is  the 
most  efficient  to  the  happiness  of  a  household. 
One  daughter  only  had  they,  and  we  could 
charm  our  heart  even  now,  by  evoking  the  va- 
nished from  oblivion,  and  imagining  her  over 
and  over  again  in  the  light  of  words;  but  al- 
though all  objects,  animate  and  inanimate, 
seem  always  tinged  with  an  air  of  sadness 
when  they  are  past — and  as  at  present  we  are 
resolved  to  be  cheerful — obstinately  to  resist 
all  access  of  melancholy — an  enemy  to  the  pa- 
thetic— and  a  scorner  of  shedders  of  tears — 
therefore  let  Mary  Morrison  rest  in  her  grave, 
and  let  us  paint  a  pleasant  picture  of  a  Ma)'- 
Day  afternoon,  and  enjoy  it  as  it  was  enjoyed 
of  old,  beneath  that  stately  Sj'camore,  with  the 
grandisonant  name  of  The  Glory  of  Mount 
Plkasaxt. 

There,  under  the  murmuring  shadow  round 
and  round  that  noble  stem,  used  on  May-dat 
to  be  fitted  a  somewhat  fantastic  board,  all 
deftly  arrayed  in  homespun  drapery,  white  as 
the  patches  of  unmelted  snow  on  the  distant 
mountain-head ;  and  on  various  seats — stumps, 
stones,  stools,  creepies,  forms,  chairs,  armless 
and  with  no  spine,  or  high-backed  and  elbowed, 
and  the  carving-work  thereof  most  intricate 
and  allegorical — took  their  places,  after  much 
formal  ceremony  of  scraping  and  bowing, 
blushing  and  curtseying,  old.  young  and  middle 
aged,  of  high  and  low  degree,  till  in  one  mo- 
ment all  were  hushed  by  the  Minister  shutting 
his  eyes,  and  holding  up  his  hand  to  ask  a 
blessing.  And  "well  worthy  of  a  grace  as 
lang's  a  tether,"  was  the  Mav-dat  meal  spread 
beneath  the  shallow  of  the  Guinv  of  Moint 
Pleasant.  But  the  Minister  uttered  only  a  few 
fervent  sentences,  and  then  we  all  fell  to  the 
curds  and  cream.  What  smooth,  pure,  bright 
burnished  beauty  on  those  horn  spoons!  How 
apt  to  the  hand  the  stalk — to  the  mouth  how 
apt  the  bowl !  Each  guest  drew  closer  to  his 
breast  the  deep  broth-plate  of  delft,  rather  more 
than  full  of  curds,  many  millions  times  more 
dcliciously  desirable  even  than  blanc-mange, 
and  then  filled  to  overflowing  with  a  blessed 
outpouring  of  creamy  richness  that  tenaciously 
descended  from  an  enormous  jug.  the  peculiar 
expression  of  whose  physiognomy,  particu- 
larly the  nose,  we  will  carry  with  us  to  the 
grave!  The  dairy  at  Mount  Pleasant  con- 
sisted of  twenty  cows — almost  all  spring 
calvers,  and  of  the  Ayrshire  breed — so  you 
may  guess  what  cream !  The  spoon  could 
not  stand  in  it — it  was  not  so  thick  as  that — 
for  that  was  too  thick — but  the  spoon  when 
placed  upright  in  it,  retained  its  perpendicu- 
larity for  a  while,  and  then,  when  uncertain  on 
■winch  side  to  fall,  was  grasped  by  the  hand  of 
hungry  schoolboy,  and  steered  with  its  fresh 
and  fragrant  freight  into  a  mouth  already  open 
in  wonder.  Never  beneath  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars,  were  such  oatmeal-cakes,  peas-scones, 
and  barley-bannocks,  as  at  Mount  Pleasant. 
You  could  have  eaten  away  at  them  with  plea- 
sure, even  although  not  hungry — and  yet  it 
•was  impossible  of  them  to  eat  too  much — 
Manna  that  they  were  ! !  Seldom  indeed  is 
butter  yello<\'  on  May-day.  But  the  butter  of 
the  gudcwife  of  Mount  Pleasant — such,  and  so 
rich  was   the  old  lea-pasture — was  coloured 


like  the  crocus,  before  the  young  thrushes  had 
left  the  nest  in  the  honey-suckled  corner  of 
the  gavel  end.  Not  a  single  hair  in  the  churn. 
Then  what  honey  and  what  jam  !  The  first, 
not  heather,  for  that  is  too  luscious,  especially 
after  such  cream,  but  the  pure  white  virgin 
honey,  like  dew  shaken  from  clover,  but  now 
qucrny  after  winter  keep ;  and  oh !  over  a 
layer  of  such  butter  on  such  barley-ban- 
nocks was  such  honey,  on  such  a  day,  in  such 
company,  and  to  such  palates,  too  divine  to 
be  described  by  such  a  pen  as  that  now  wielded 
by  such  a  writer  !  The  Jam  !  It  was  of  goose- 
berries— the  small  black  hairy  ones — gathered 
to  a  very  minute  from  the  bush,  and  boiled  to 
a  very  moment  in  the  pan  !  A  bannock  stud- 
ded with  some  dozen  or  two  of  such  grozets 
was  more  beautiful  than  a  corresponding  Ex- 
panse of  heaven  adorned  with  as  many  stars. 
The  question,  with  the  gawsy  and  generous 
gudewife  of  Mount  Pleasant,  was  not — "My 
dear  laddie,  which  will  ye  hae — hinny  or  jam'!" 
but,  "  Which  will  ye  hae  first!"  The  honey, 
we  well  remember,  was  in  two  huge  brown  jugs, 
or  jars,  or  crocks;  the  jam,  in  half  a  dozen 
white  cans  of  more  moderate  dimensions,  from 
whose  mouths  a  veil  of  thin  transparent  paper 
was  withdrawn,  while,  like  a  steam  of  rich 
distilled  perfumes,  rose  a  fruity  fragrance,  that 
blended  with  the  vernal  balminess  of  the  hum- 
ming Sycamore.  There  the  bees,  were  all  at 
work  for  next  May-day,  happy  as  ever  bees 
were  on  Hybla  itself;  and  gone  now  though  be 
the  aee  of  gold,  happy  as  Arcadians  were  we, 
nor  wanted  our  festal-day  or  pipe  or  song ; 
for  to  the  breath  of  Harry  Wilion,  the  young 
English  boy,  the  flute  gave  forth  tunes  almost 
as  liquid  sweet  as  those  that  flowed  from  the 
lips  of  Mary  Morrison  herself,  who  alone,  of 
all  singers  in  hut  or  hall  that  ever  drew  tears, 
left  nothing  for  the  heart  or  the  imagination  to 
desire  in  any  one  of  Scotland's  ancient  melo- 
dies. 

Never  had   Mary  Morrison  heard  the   old 

ballad-airs   sung,  except  during  the  mid-day 

hour  of  rest,  in  the  corn  or  hay  field — and  rude 

'  singers  are  they  all — whether  male  or  female 

voices — although  sometimes  with  a  touch  of 

nalucal  pathos  that  finds  its  way  to  the  heart. 

,  But  as  the  nightingale  would  sing  truly  its  own 

variegated  song,  although  it  never  were  to  hear 

any  one  of  its  own  kind  warbling  from  among 

the  shrub-roots,  and  the  lark  though  alone  on 

I  earth,  would  sing  the  hymn  well  known  at  the 

I  gale  of  heaven,  so  all  untaught  but  by  the  na- 

1  ture  within  her,  and  inspired  by  her  own  de- 

i  lightful  genius  alone,  did  Mary  Morrison  feel 

'  all  the  measures  of  those  ancient  melodies,  and 

give  them  all  an  expression  at  once  so  simple 

I  and  profound.     People  who  said  they  did  not 

,  care  about  music,  especially  Scottish  music,  if 

was  so  monotonous  and  insipid,  laid  aside  their 

indifferent  looks  before  three  notes  of  the  sim 

plest  air  had  left  Mary  Morrison's  lips,  as  she 

sat  faintly  blushing,  less   in  bashfulness  than 

in  her  own  emotion,  with  her  little  hands  pla)'- 

ing  perhaps  with  flowers,  and  her  eyes  fixed 

on  the  ground,  or  raised,  evei  and  anon,  to  the 

roof.     "In    all   common  things,"  would  most 

people  say,  "  she  is  but  a  very  oiuinary  girl — 

but  her  musical  turn  is  really  very  singular 


MAY-DAY. 


in 


indeed;" — but  her  happy  father  and  mother 
knew,  that  in  all  common  things — that  is,  in 
all  the  duties  of  an  humble  and  innocent  life, 
their  Mary  was  by  nature  excellent  as  in  the 
melodies  and  harmonies  of  song — and  that 
while  her  voice  in  the  evening-psahn  was  as 
angel's  .sweet,  so  was  her  spirit  almost  pure  as 
an  angel's,  and  nearly  inexperienced  of  sin. 

Proud,  indeed,  were  her  parents  on  that 
May-day  to  look  upon  her — and  to  listen  to 
her — as  their  Mary  sat  beside  the  young  English 
boy — admired  of  all  observers — and  happier 
than  she  had  ever  been  in  this  world  before,  in 
the  charm  of  their  blended  music,  and  the  un- 
conscious affection — sislerly,  yet  more  than 
sisterly,  for  brother  she  had  none — that  towards 
one  so  kind  and  noble  was  yearning  at  her 
heart. 

Beautiful  were  they  both;  and  when  they 
sat  side  by  side  iu  their  music,  insensible  must 
that  heart  have  been  by  whom  they  were  not  both 
admired  and  beloved.  It  was  thought  that  they 
loved  one  another  too,  too  well ;  for  Harry 
Wilton  was  the  grandson  of  an  English  Peer, 
and  Mary  Morrison  a  peasant's  child  ;  but  they 
could  not  love  too  well — she  in  her  tenderness 
— he  ill  his  passion — for,  with  them,  IWe  and 
love  was  a  delightful  dream,  out  of  which  ihey 
were  never  to  be  awakened.  P'or  as  by  some 
secret  sympathy,  both  sickened  on  the  same 
day — of  the  same  fever — and  died  at  the  same 
hour; — and  not  from  any  dim  intention  of 
those  who  buried  them,  but  accidentally,  and 
because  the  burial-ground  of  the  Minister  and 
the  Elder  adjoined,  were  they  buried  almost  in 
the  same  grave — for  not  half  a  yard  of  daisied 
turf  divided  them — a  curtain  between  the  beds 
on  which  brother  and  sister  slept. 

In  their  delirium  they  both  talked  about  each 
other — Mary  Morrison  and  Harry  Wilton — yet 
their  words  were  not  words  of  love,  only  of 
common  kindness  ;  for  although  on  theirdeath- 
beds  they  did  not  talk  about  death,  but  frequent- 
ly about  that  May-day  Festival,  and  other 
pleasant  meetings  in  neighbour's  houses,  or  in 
the  Manse.  Mary  sometimes  rose  up  in  bed, 
and  in  imagination  joined  her  voice  to  that  of  the 
flute  which  to  his  lips  was  to  breath  no  more; 
and  even  at  the  very  self-same  moment — so  it 
wonderfully  was — did  he  tell  all  to  be  hushed, 
for  that  Mary  Morrison  was  about  to  sing  the 
Flowers  of  the  Forest. 

Methinks  that  no  deep  impressions  of  the 
past,  although  haply  they  may  sleep  for  ever, 
and  seem  as  if  they  had  ceased  to  be,  are  ever 
utterly  obliterated;  but  that  they  may,  one  and 
all,  reappear  at  some  hour  or  other  however 
distant,  legible  as  at  the  very  moment  they 
were  fust  engraven  on  the  memory.  Not  by  the 
power  of  meditation  are  the  long  ago  vanished 
thoughts  or  emotions  restored  to  us,  in  which 
we  found  delight  or  disturbance;  but  of  them- 
selves do  they  seem  to  arise,  not  undesired  in- 
deed, but  unbidden,  like  sea-birds  that  come 
unexpectedly  floating  up  into  some  inland  vale, 
because,  unknown  to  us  who  wonder  at  them, 
the  tide  is  flowing  and  the  breezes  blow  from 
the  main.  Bright  as  the  living  image  stands 
now  before  us  the  ghost — for  what  else  is  it  than 
the  gho;it — of  Mary  Morrison,  just  as  she  stood 
before  us  on  one  particular  day — in  one  par- 


ticular place,  innumerable  years  ago!  It  was 
at  the  close  of  one  of  those  midsummer  days 
which  melt  away  into  twilight,  rather  than 
into  night,  although  the  stars  are  visible,  and 
bird  and  beast  are  asleep.  All  by  herself,  as 
she  walked  along  between  the  braes,  was  she 
singing  a  hymn — 

And  must  this  body  die? 

This  mortal  frame  decay'? 
And  must  these  feeble  limhs  of  mine 

Lie  mouldering  in  the  clay  1 

Not  that  the  child  had  any  thought  of  death, 
for  she  was  as  full  of  life  as  the  star  above 
her  was  of  lustre — tamed  though  they  both 
were  by  the  holy  hour.  At  our  bidding  she 
renewed  the  strain  that  had  ceased  as  we  met, 
and  continued  to  sing  it  while  we  parted,  her 
voice  dying  away  in  the  distance,  like  an  an- 
gel's from  a  broken  dream.  Never  heard  we 
that  voice  again,  for  in  three  little  weeks  it  had 
gone,  to  be  extinguished  no  more,  to  join  the 
heavenly  choirs  at  the  feet  of  the  Redeemer. 

Did  both  her  parents  lose  all  love  to  life, 
when  their  sole  daughter  was  taken  away  1 
And  did  they  die  finally  of  broken  hearts  1  No 
— such  is  not  the  natural  working  of  the  hu- 
man spirit,  if  kept  in  repair  by  pure  and  pious 
thought.  Never  were  they  so  happy  indeed  as 
they  had  once  been — nor  was  their  happiness 
of  the  same  kind.  Oh  !  different  far  in  resigna- 
tion that  often  wept  when  it  did  not  repine — in 
faith  that  now  held  a  tenderer  commerce  with 
the  skies  !  Smiles  were  not  very  long  of  being 
again  seen  at  Mount  Pleasant.  An  orphan 
cousin  of  Mary's — they  had  been  as  sisters — 
took  her  place,  and  filled  it  too,  as  far  as  the 
living  can  ever  fill  the  place  of  the  dead.  Com- 
mon cares  continued  for  a  while  to  occupy  the 
Elder  and  his  wife,  for  there  were  not  a  few  to 
whom  their  substance  was  to  be  a  blessing. 
Ordinary  observers  could  not  have  discerned 
any  abatement  of  his  activities  in  field  or 
market;  but  others  saw  that  the  toil  to  him 
was  now  but  a  duty  that  had  formerly  been  a 
delight.  Mount  Pleasant  was  let  to  a  re- 
lative, and  the  Morrisons  retired  to  a  small 
house,  with  a  garden,  a  few  hundred  yards  from 
the  kirk.  Let  him  be  strong  as  a  giant,  infirmi- 
ties often  come  on  the  hard-working  man  be- 
fore you  can  well  call  him  old.  It  was  so  with 
Adam  Morrison.  He  broke  down  fast  we  have 
been  told,  in  his  sixtieth  year,  and  after  that 
partook  but  of  one  sacrament.  Not  in  tales  of 
fiction  alone  do  those  who  have  long  loved  and 
well,  lay  themselves  down  and  die  in  each 
other's  arms.  Such  happy  deaths  are  recorded 
on  humble  tombstones;  and  there  is  one  on 
which  this  inscription  may  be   read — "Here 

LIE    THE     BODIES    OF    AhaX      MoHRISON^    ATflt      OP 

Helen^  Armour  his  SrousE.  They  died  ox 
THE  1st  of.  Mat    17 — .     Here  also   lies  the 

BODY      OF    THEIR    DAUGHTER,     MaRT     MoRniSOX, 

WHO  DIED  JuxE  2,  17 — ."  Thc  headstone  is  a 
granite  slab — as  they  almost  all  are  in  that 
kirkyard — and  the  kirk  itself  is  of  the  same  en- 
during material.  But  touching  that  grave  is  a 
Marble  Monument,  white  almost  as  the  very 
snow,  and,  in  th-e  midst  of  the  emblazonry  of 
death,  adorned  with  the  armorial  bearings  be- 
longing to  a  family  of  the  high-born. 

Sworn    Brother  of   our    soul !    during  the 


172 


RECREATIOXS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


bright  ardours  of  boyhood,  when  the  present 
was  all-sufficient  in  its  own  bliss,  the  past  soon 
forgotten,  and  the  future  unfeared,  what  might 
have  been  thy  lot,  beloved  Harry  Wilton,  had 
thy  span   of  life  been   prolonged  to  this   very 
day  1     Belter — oh  !  far  better  was  it  for  thee 
and  thine  that  thou  didst  so  early  die  ;  for  it 
seemeih  that  a  curse  is  on  that  lofty  lineage; 
and  that,  with  all  theirgenius, accomplishments, 
and  virtues,  dishonour  comes  and  goes,  a  fami- 
liar andpriviieged  guest,out  and  in  their  house. 
Shame    never  veiled  the   light  of  those    bold 
eyes,  nor  tamed  the  eloquence  of  those  sunny 
lips,  nor  ever  for  a  single  moment  bowed  down 
that  young  princely  head  that,  like  a  fast-grow- 
ing flower,  seemed  each  successive  morning  to 
be  visibly  rising  up    towards  a  stalely   man- 
hood.    But  the  time  was  not  far  distant,  when 
to  thee  life  would   have  undergone  a    rueful 
transformation.     Thy  father,  expatriated  by  the 
spells  of  a  sorceress,  and   forced  into  foreign 
countries,  to  associate  with  vice,  worlhlessness, 
profligacy,  and  crime!     Thy  mother,  dead  of  a 
broken   heart!      And   that  lovely  sister,  who 
came  to   the  Manse  with  her  jewelled  hair — 
But  all  these  miserable  things  who  could  pro- 
phesy, at   the  hour  when  we  and  the  weeping 
villagers  laid  thee,  apart  from   the  palace  and 
the   burial-vault  of   thy   high-born   ancestors, 
without  anthem  or  organ-peal,  among  the  hum- 
ble dead?    Needless  and  foolish  were  all  those 
floods  of  tears.     In    thy   brief  and    beautiful 
course,  nothing  have  we   who  loved  thee   to 
lament  or  condemn.   In  few  memories,  indeed, 
doth  thy  image  now  survive;  for  in  process 
of  time  what  young  face  fadeih  not  away  from 
eyes  busied  with  the  shows  of  this  living  world ! 
What  young  voice  is  not  bedumbed   to  ears 
for  ever  filled  with  its  perplexing  din  7     Yet 
thou.  Nature,  on   this   glorious  May-day.  re- 
joicing in  all  the  plenitude   of  thy  bliss — we 
call  upon  thee  to  bear  witness  to  the  intensitv 
of  our  never-dying  grief!     Ye  fields,  that  long 
ago  we  so  often  trode  together,  with  the  wind- 
swept shadows  hovering  about  our  path — Ye 
streams,  whose  murmur  awoke  our  imagina- 
tions, as  we  lay  reading,  or  musing  together  in 
day-dreams,   among    the    broomy   braes — Ye 
woods,  where  we  started  at  the  startled  cushat, 
or  paused,  without  a  word,  to  hear  the  crea- 
ture's solitary  moans  and  murmurs  deepening 
the   far   ofll"  hush,   already   so   profound — Ye 
moors  and  mosses,  black  yet  beautiful,  with 
your  peat-trenches  overshadowed  by  the  hea- 
ther-blossoms that  scented  the  wilderness  afar 
— where  the  little  maiden,  sent  from  the  shiel- 
ing on  errands  to  town  or  village  in  the  coun- 
try below,  seemed,  as  we  met  her  in   the  sun- 
shine, to  rise  up  before  us  for  our  delight,  like 
a  fairy  from  the   desert   bloom — Thou  loch, 
remote  in  thy  treeless  solitude,  and  with  nought 
reflected  in  thy  many-springed  waters  but  those 
low  pastoral  hills  of  excessive  green,  and  the 
while-barred  blue  of  heaven — no  creature  on 
its  shores  but  our  own  selves,  keenly  angling 
in  the  breezes,  or  lying  in  the  shaded  sunshine, 
with  some  book  of  old  ballads,  or  strain  of 
f.omc  Immortal  yet  alive  on  earth — one  and 
all,  bear  witness  to  our  undying  alTection,  that 
silently  now  feeds  on  grief!     And.  oh !  what 
4><'erflowing  thoughts  did   that  shout  of  ours 


now  awaken  from  the  hanging  tower  of  the 
Old  Castle — "  Wilton,  Wilton  !"  The  name 
of  the  long-ago  buried  faintly  and  afar-off  re- 
peated by  an  echo ! 

A  pensive  shade  has  fallen  across  Mat-dat  ; 
and  while  the  sun  is  behind  those  castellated 
clouds,  our  imagination  is  willing  to  retire  into 
the  saddest  places  of  memory,  and  gather  to- 
gether stories  and  tales  of  tears.  And  many 
such  there  are,  annually  sprinkled  all  round 
the  humble  huts  of  our  imaginative  and  re- 
ligious land,  even  like  the  wild-flowers  that,  in 
endless  succession,  disappearing  and  reappear- 
ing in  their  beauty,  Spring  drops  down  upon 
ever>'  brae.  And  as  ofltimes  some  one  par- 
ticular tune,  some  one  pathetic  but  imperfect 
and  fragmentary  part  of  an  old  melody,  will 
nearly  touch  the  heart,  when  it  is  dead  to  the 
finest  and  most  finished  strain  ;  so  now  a  faint 
and  dim  tradition  comes  upon  us,  giving  birth 
to  uncertain  and  inystcrious  thoughts.  It  is  an 
old  Tradition.  They  were  called  the  Blessed 
Family  !  Far  up  at  the  head  of  yonder  glen 
of  old  was  their  dwelling,  and  in  their  garden 
sparkled  the  translucent  well  that  is  the 
source  of  the  stream  that  animates  the  parish 
with  a  hundred  waterfalls.  Father,  mother, 
and  daughter — it  was  hard  to  say  which  of  the 
three  was  the  most  beloved!  Yet  they  were 
not  native  here,  but  brought  with  ihem,  from 
some  distant  place,  the  soft  and  silvery  ac- 
cents of  the  pure  English  tongue,  and  manners 
most  gracious  in  their  serene  simplicity; 
while  over  a  life  composed  of  acts  of  charity 
was  spread  a  stillness  that  nothing  ever  dis- 
turbed— the  stillness  of  a  thoughtful  pity  for 
human  sins  and  sorrows,  yet  not  unwilling  to 
be  moved  to  smiles  by  the  breath  of  joy.  In 
those  days  the  very  heart  of  Scotland  was  dis- 
tracted— persecution  scattered  her  prayers — 
and  during  the  summer  months,  families  re- 
mained shut  up  in  fear  within  their  huts,  as 
if  the  snowdrifts  of  winter  had  blocked  up  and 
buried  their  doors.  It  was  as  if  the  sliadow 
of  a  ihunder-cluud  hung  over  all  the  land,  so 
that  men's  hearts  quaked  as  they  looked  up  to 
heaven — when,  lo  !  all  at  once.  Three  gracious 
Visitants  appeared!  Imagination  invested  their 
foreheads  with  a  halo;  and  as  they  walked  on 
their  missions  of  mercy,  exclaimed — How 
beautiful  are  their  feet !  Few  words  was  the 
Child  ever  heard  to  speak,  except  some  words 
of  prayer;  but  her  image-like  stillness  breathed 
a  blessing  wherever  it  smiled,  and  all  the  little 
maidens  loved  her,  when  hushed  almost  into 
awe  by  hef  spiritual  beauty,  as  she  knelt  with 
them  in  their  morning  and  evening  orisons. 
The  Mother's  face,  too,  it  is  said,  was  pale  as 
a  face  of  grief,  while  her  eyes  seemed  always 
happy,  and  a  tone  of  thanksgiving  was  in  her 
voice.  Her  Husband  leant  upon  her  on  his 
way  to  the  grave — for  his  eye's  excessive 
brightness  glittered  with  death — and  often,  as 
he  prayed  beside  the  sick-bed,  his  cheek  be- 
came like  ashes,  for  his  heart  in  a  moment 
ceased  to  beat,  and  then,  as  if  about  to  burst 
in  agony,  sounded  audibly  in  the  silence. 
Journeying  on  did  they  all  seem  to  heaven; 
yet  as  they  were  passing  by,  how  loving  and 
how  full  of  mercy  !  To  them  belonged  some 
blessed  power  to  wave  away  the  sword  lha» 


MAY-DAY. 


173 


■would  fain  have  smitten  the  Saints.  The  dew- 
drops  on  the  greensward  before  the  cottage- 
door,  they  suffered  not  to  be  polluted  with 
blood.  Guardian  Angels  were  they  thought  to 
be,  and  such  indeed  they  were,  for  what  else 
are  the  holy  powers  of  innocence  1 — Guardian 
Angels  sent  to  save  some  of  God's  servants  on 
earth  from  the  choking  tide  and  the  scorching 
fire.  Often,  in  the  clear  and  starry  nights,  did 
the  dwellers  among  all  these  little  dells,  and 
up  along  all  these  low  hillsides,  hear  music 
flowing  down  from  heaven,  responsive  to  the 
hymns  of  the  Blessed  Family.  Music  without 
the  syllabling  of  words — yet  breathing  worship, 
and  with  the  spirit  of  piety  filling  all  the  Night- 
Heavens.  One  whole  day  and  night  passed  by, 
and  not  a  hut  had  been  enlightened  by  their 
presence.  Perhaps  they  had  gone  away  with- 
out warning  as  they  had  come — having  been 
sent  on  another  mission.  With  soft  steps  one 
maiden,  and  then  another  entered  the  door,  and 
then  was  heard  the  voice  of  weeping  and  of 
loud  lament.  The  three  lay,  side  by  side,  with 
their  pale  faces  up  to  heaven.  Dora,  for  that 
is  the  name  tradition  has  handed  down — 
Dorothea,  the  gift  of  God,  lay  between  her 
Father  and  her  Mother,  and  all  their  hands 
were  lovingly  and  peacefully  entwined.  No 
agonies  had  been  there — unknown  what  hand, 
human  or  divino,  had  closed  their  eyelids  and 
composed  their  limbs;  but  there  they  lay  as  if 
asleep,  not  to  be  awakened  by  the  burst  of  sun- 
shine that  dazzled  upon  their  smiling  counte- 
nances, cheek  to  cheek,  in  the  awful  beauty  of 
united  death. 

The  deep  religion  of  that  troubled  time  had 
sanctified  the  Strangers  almost  into  an  angelic 
character;  and  when  the  little  kirk-bells  were 
again  heard  tinkling  through  the  air  of  peace, 
(the  numtier  of  the  martyrs  being  complete,) 
the  beauty  with  which  their  living  foreheads 
had  been  invested,  reappeared  in  the  eyes  of 
imagination,  as  the  Poets  whom  Nature  kept 
to  herself  walked  along  the  moonlight  hills. 
"The  Blessed  Family,"  which  had  been  as  a 
household  word,  appertaining  to  them  while 
they  lived,  now  when  centuries  have  gone  by, 
is  still  full  of  a  dim  but  divine  meaning;  the 
spirit  of  the  tradition  having  remained,  while 
its  framework  has  almost  fallen  into  decay. 

How  beautifully  emerges  that  sun-stricken 
Cottage  from  the  rocks,  that  all  around  it  are 
floating  in  a  blue  vapoury  light !  Were  we  so 
disposed,  melhinks  we  could  easily  write  a  lit- 
tle book  entirely  about  the  obscure  people  that 
have  lived  and  died  about  that  farm,  by  name 
LoGAx  BuAEs.  Neither  is  it  without  its  old 
traditions.  One  May-day  long  ago — some  two 
centuries  since — that  rural  festival  was  there 
interrupted  by  a  thunder-storm,  and  the  party 
of  youths  and  maidens,  driven  from  the  budding 
arbours,  were  all  assembled  in  the  ample 
kitchen.  The  house  seemed  to  be  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  thunder;  and  the  master  began  to 
read,  without  declaring  it  to  be  a  religious  ser- 
vice, a  chapter  of  the  Bible;  but  the  frequent 
flashes  of  lightning  so  blinded  him,  that  he  was 
forced  to  lay  down  the  Book,  and  all  then  sat 
still  without  speaking  a  word  ;  many  with  pale 
faces,  and  none  without  a  mingled  sense  of 
awe  and  fear.    The  maiden  forgot  her  bashful- 


ness  as  the  rattling  peals  shook  the  roof-tree,  and 
hid  her  face  in  her  lover's  bosom ;  the  children 
crept  closer  and  closer,  each  to  some  protecting 
knee,  and  the  dogs  came  ail  into  the  house,  and. 
lay  down  in  dark  places.  Now  and  then  there 
was  a  convulsive,  irrepressible,  but  half-stifled 
shriek — some  sobbed — and  a  loud  hysterical 
laugh  from  one  overcome  with  terror  sounded 
ghastly  between  the  deepest  of  all  dread  repose 
— that  which  separates  one  peal  from  another, 
when  the  flash  and  the  roar  are  as  one,  and  the 
thick  air  smells  of  sulphur.  The  body  feels  its 
mortal  nature,  and  shrinks  as  if  about  to  be 
withered  into  nothing.  Now  the  muttering 
thunder  seems  to  have  changed  its  place  to 
some  distant  cloud — now,  as  if  returning  to 
blast  those  whom  it  had  spared,  waxes  louder 
and  fiercer  than  before — till  the  Great  Tree 
that  shelters  the  house  is  shivered  with  a  noise 
like  the  masts  of  a  ship  carried  away  by  the 
board.  "  Look,  father,  look — see  yonder  is  an 
Angel  all  in  white,  descending  from  heaven !" 
saidjittle  Alice,  who  had  already  been  almost 
in  the  attitude  of  prayer,  and  now  clasped  her 
hands  together,  and  steadfastly,  and  without 
fear  of  the  lightning,  eyed  the  sky.  "  One  of 
God's  Holy  Angels — one  of  those  who  sing  be- 
fore the  Lamb!"  And  with  an  inspired  rap- 
ture the  fair  child  sprung  to  her  feet.  "  See  )'e 
her  not — see  ye  her  not — father — mother  1  Lo ! 
she  beckons  to  me  with  a  palm  in  her  hand, 
like  one  of  the  palms  in  that  picture  in  our  Bi- 
ble when  our  Saviour  is  entering  into  Jerusa- 
lem !  There  she  comes,  nearer  and  nearer  the 
earth — Oh !  pity,  forgive,  and  have  mercy  on 
me,  thou  most  beautiful  of  all  the  Angels — even 
for  His  name's  sake."  All  eyes  were  turned 
towards  the  black  heavens,  and  then  to  the 
raving  child.  Her  mother  clasped  her  to  her 
bosom,  afraid  that  terror  had  turned  her  brain 
— and  her  father  going  to  the  door,  surveyed 
an  ampler  space  of  the  sky.  She  flew  to  his 
side,  and  clinging  to  him  again,  exclaimed  in 
a  wild  outcry,  "  On  her  forehead  a  star !  on 
her  forehead  a  star !  And  oh  !  on  what  lovely 
wings  she  is  floating  away,  away  into  eternity  ! 
The  Angel,  Father,  is  calling  me  by  my  Chris- 
tian name,  and  I  must  no  more  abide  on  earth ; 
but,  touching  the  hem  of  her  garment,  be  waft- 
ed away  to  heaven !"  Sudden  as  a  bird  let 
loose  from  the  hand,  darted  the  maiden  from 
her  father's  bosom,  and  with  her  face  upward 
to  the  skies,  pursued  her  flight.  Young  and 
old  left  the  house,  and  at  that  moment  the  fork- 
ed lightning  came  from  the  crashing  cloud,  and 
struck  the  whole  tenement  into  ruins.  Not  a 
hair  on  any  head  was  singed ;  and  with  one 
accord  the  people  fell  down  upon  their  knees. 
From  the  eyes  of  the  child,  the  Angel,  or  vision 
of  the  Angel,  had  disappeared  ;  but  on  her  re- 
turn to  heaven,  the  Celestial  heard  the  hymn 
that  rose  from  those  that  were  saved,  and  above 
all  the  voices,  the  small  sweet  silvery  voice  of 
her  whose  eyes  alone  were  worthy  of  beholding 
a  Saint  Transfigured. 

For  several  hundred  years  has  that  farm  be- 
longed to  the  family  of  the  Logans,  nor  has 
son  or  daughter  ever  stained  the  name — vhile 
some  have  imparted  to  it,  in  its  humble  annals 
what  well  may  be  called  lustre.  Many  a  time 
have  we  stood  when  a  boy,  all  alone,  beginning 
p  2 


174 


RECREATIONS   OF   CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


to  be  disturbed  by  the  record  of  heroic  or  holy 
lives,  in  the  kirkyard,  beside  the  Grave  of  the 
Mahttrs — the  grave  in  which  Christian  and 
Hannah  Logan,  mother  and  daughter,  were  in- 
terred. Many  a  time  have  we  listened  to  the 
story  of  their  deaths,  from  the  lips  of  one  who 
well  knew  how  to  stir  the  hearts  of  the  young, 
till  "from  their  eyes  they  wiped  the  tears  that 
sacred  pity  had  engendered."  Nearly  a  hun- 
dred years  old  was  she  that  eloquent  narrator 
— the  Minister's  mother — yet  she  could  hear  a 
whisper,  and  read  the  Bible  without  spectacles 
— although  we  sometimes  used  to  suspect  her 
of  pretending  to  be  reading  off  the  Book,  when, 
in  fact,  she  was  reciting  from  memorj'.  The 
old  lady  often  took  a  walk  in  the  kirkyard — 
and  being  of  a  pleasant  and  cheerful  nature, 
though  in  religious  principle  inflexibly  austere, 
many  were  the  most  amusing  anecdotes  that 
she  related  to  us  and  our  compeers,  all  huddled 
round  her,  "where  heaved  the  turf  in  many  a 
mouldering  heap."  But  the  evening  converse 
was  always  sure  to  have  a  serious  termination 
—and  the  venerable  matron  could  not  be  more 
willing  to  tell,  than  we  to  hear  again  and  again, 
were  it  foY  the  twentieth  repetition,  some  old 
tragic  event  that  gathered  a  deeper  interest 
from  every  recital,  as  if  on  each  we  became 
better  acquainted  with  the  characters  of  tht)se 
to  whom  it  had  befallen,  till  tlie  chasm  that 
time  had  dug  between  them  and  us  disap- 
peared, and  we  felt  for  the  while  that  their 
happiness  or  misery  and  ours  were  essentially 
interdependent.  At  first  she  used,  we  well  re- 
member, to  fix  her  solemn  spirit-like  eyes  on 
our  faces,  to  mark  the  different  effects  her  stor}' 
produced  on  her  hearers;  but  erelong  she  be- 
came possessed  wholly  by  the  pathos  of  her 
own  narrative,  and  with  fluctuating  features 
and  earnest  action  of  head  and  hands,  poured 
forth  her  eloquence,  as  if  soliloquizing  among 
the  tombs. 

"  Ay,  ay,  my  dear  boys,  that  is  the  grave  o' 
the  Martyrs.  My  father  saw  them  die.  The 
tide  o'  the  far-ebbed  sea  was  again  beginning 
to  flow,  but  the  sands  o'  the  bay  o'  death  lay 
sae  dry,  that  there  were  but  few  spots  where 
a  bairn  could  hae  wat  its  feet.  Thousands 
and  tens  o'  thousands  were  standing  a'  roun' 
the  edge  of  the  bay — that  was  in  shape  just 
like  that  moon — and  then  twa  stakes  were 
driven  deep  into  the  sand,  that  the  waves  o' 
the  returning  sea  micht  na  loosen  them — and 
my  father,  who  was  but  a  boy  like  ane  o' 
yourselves  noo,  waes  me,  didna  he  see  wi'  his 
ain  een  Christian  Logan,  and  her  wee  dochter 
Hannah,  for  she  was  but  eleven  years  auld — 
hurried  alang  by  the  enemies  o'  the  Lord,  and 
tied  to  their  accursed  stakes  within  the  power 
o'  the  sea.  He  who  holds  the  waters  in  the 
hollow  o'  his  hand,  thocht  my  father,  will  not 
suffer  them  to  choke  the  prayer  within  those 
holy  lips — but  what  kent  he  o'  the  dreadfu' 
judgments  o'  the  Almighty  1  Dreadfu'  as 
those  judgments  seemed  to  be,  o'  a'  that  crowd 
o'  mortal  creatures  there  were  but  only  twa 
that  drew  their  breath  without  a  shudder — and 
these  twa  were  Christian  Logan  and  her  beau- 
tifu'  wee  dochter  Hannah,  wi'  her  rosy  cheeks, 
for  they  blanched  not  in  that  last  extremity, 
net  blue  ee^,  and  her  gowden  hair,  that  glit- 


tered like  a  star  in  the  darkness  o'  that  dismal 
day.  'Mother,  be  not  afraid,'  she  was  heard 
to  say,  when  the  foam  o'  the  first  wave  broke 
about  their  feet — and  just  as  these  words  were 
uttered,  all  the  great  black  clouds  melted  away 
from  the  sky,  and  the  sun  shone  forth  in  the 
firmament  like  the  all-seeing  eye  of  God.  The 
martyrs  turned  their  faces  a  little  towards  one 
another,  for  'he  cords  could  not  wholly  hinder 
them,  and  wi'  voices  as  steady  and  as  clear  as 
ever  they  sang  the  psalm  within  the  walls  o' 
that  kirk,  did  they,  while  the  sea  was  mount- 
ing up — up  from  knee — waist — breast — neck 
— chin — lip — sing  praises  and  thanksgivings 
unto  God.  As  soon  as  Hannah's  voice  was 
drowned,  it  seemed  as  if  her  mother,  before 
the  water  reached  her  own  lips,  bowed  and 
gave  up  the  ghost.  While  the  people  were  all 
gazing,  the  heads  of  both  martyrs  disappeared, 
and  nothing  then  was  to  be  seen  on  the  face  o' 
the  waters,  but  here  and  there  a  bit  white 
breaking  wave  or  silly  sea-bird  floating  on  the 
flow  o'  the  tide  into  the  bay.  Back  and  back 
had  aye  fallen  the  people,  as  the  tide  was 
roarin'  on  wi'  a  hollow  soun' — and  now  that 
the  water  was  high  aboon  the  heads  o'  the 
martyrs,  what  chained  that  dismal  congrega- 
tion to  the  sea-shore  ?  It  was  the  countenance 
o'  a  man  that  had  suddenly  come  down  frae 
his  hiding-place  amang  the  moors — and  who 
now  knew  that  his  wife  and  daughter  were 
bound  to  slakes  deep  down  in  the  waters  o* 
the  very  bay  that  his  eyes  beheld  rolling,  and 
his  ears  heard  roaring — all  the  while  that  there 
was  a  God  in  heaven  !  Naebody  could  speak 
to  him — although  they  all  beseeched  their 
Maker  to  have  compassion  upon  him,  and  not 
to  let  his  heart  break  and  his  reason  fail. 
'  The  stakes  !  the  stakes  !  O  Jesus  !  point  out 
to  me,  with  thy  own  scarred  hand,  the  place 
where  my  wife  and  daughter  are  bound  to  the 
stakes — and  I  may  yet  bear  them  up  out  of 
the  sand,  and  bring  the  bodies  ashore — to  be 
restored  to  life  !  O  brethren,  brethren  ! — said 
ye  that  my  Christian  and  my  Hannah  have 
been  for  an  hour  below  ihq  sea?  And  was  it 
from  fear  of  fifty  armed  men,  that  so  many 
thousand  fathers  and  mothers,  and  sons  and 
daughters,  and  brothers  and  sisters,  rescued 
them  not  from  such  cruel,  cruel  death  !'  After 
uttering  mony  mair  siclike  raving  words,  he 
suddenly  plunged  into  the  sea,  and,  being  a 
strong  swimmer,  was  soon  far  out  into  the 
bay — and  led  by  some  desperate  instinct  to 
the  very  place  where  the  stakes  were  fixed  in 
'  the  sand.  Perfectly  resigned  had  the  martyrs 
'  been  to  their  doom — but  in  the  agonies  o'  that 
horrible  death,  there  had  been  some  struggles 
o'  the  mortal  body,  and  the  weight  o'  the 
waters  had  borne  down  the  stakes,  so  that, 
just  as  if  they  had  been  lashed  to  a  spar  to 
enable  them  to  escape  from  shipwreck,  baith 
the  bodies  came  floatin'  to  the  surface,  and  his 
hand  grasped,  without  knowing  it,  his  ain 
Hannah's  gowden  hair — sarely  defiled,  ye  may 
weel  think,  wi'  the  sand — baith  their  faces 
changed  frae  what  they  ance  were  by  the 
wrench  o'  death.  Father,  mother,  and  daugh- 
ter came  a'thegilher  to  the  shore — and  there 
was  a  cry  went  far  and  wide,  up  even  to  the 
hiding-places  o'  the  faithfu'  among  the  hags 


MAY-DAY. 


175 


and  cleuchs  i'  the  moors,  that  the  sea  had 
given  up  the  living,  and  that  the  martyrs 
were  triumphant,  even  in  this  world,  over  the 
powers  o'  Sin  and  o'  Death.  Yea,  they  were 
indeed  triumphant; — and  well  might  the  faith- 
fu'  sing  aloud  in  the  desert, '  O  Death,  where 
is  thy  sting  1  O  Grave,  where  is  thy  victory  1' 
for  these  three  bodies  were  but  as  the  weeds 
on  which  they  lay  stretched  out  to  the  pitying 
gaze  of  the  multitude,  but  their  spirits  had 
gane  to  heaven,  to  receive  the  eternal  rewards 
o'  sanctity  and  truth." 

Not  a  house  in  all  the  parish — scarcely  ex- 
cepting Mount  Pleasant  itself — all  round  and 
about  which  our  heart  could  in  some  dreamy 
hour  raise  to  life  a  greater  multitude  of  dear 
old  remembrances,  all  touching  ourselves,  than 
Logan  Braes.  The  old  people  when  we  first 
knew  them,  we  used  to  think  somewhat  apt  to 
be  surly — for  they  were  Seceders — and  owing 
to  some  unavoidable  prejudices,  which  we 
were  at  no  great  pains  to  vanquish,  we  Manse- 
boys  recognised  something  repulsive  in  that 
most  respectable  word.  Yet  for  the  sake  of 
that  sad  story  of  the  Martyrs,  there  was  always 
something  affecting  to  us  in  the  name  of  Logan 
Braes  ;  and  though  Beltane  was  of  old  a  Pagan 
Festival,  celebrated  with  grave  idolatries  round 
fires  a-blaze  on  a  thousand  hills,  yet  old  Lau- 
rence Logan  would  sweeten  his  vinegar  aspect 
on  May-day,  would  wipe  out  a  score  of  wrinkles, 
and  calm,  as  far  as  that  might  be,  the  terrors 
of  his  shaggy  eyebrows.  A  little  gentleness 
of  manner  goes  a  long  way  with  such  young 
folk  as  we  were  all  then,  when  it  is  seen  natu- 
rally and  easily  worn  for  our  sakes,  and  in 
sympathy  with  our  accustomed  glee,  by  one 
who  in  his  ordinar)--  deportment  may  have 
added  the  austerity  of  religion  to  the  vener- 
ableness  of  old  age.  Smiles  from  old  Laurence 
Logan,  the  Seceder,  were  like  rare  sun-glimpses 
in  the  gloom — and  made  the  hush  of  his  house 
pleasant  as  a  more  cheerful  place  ;  for  through 
the  restraint  laid  on  reverent  youth  by  feeling 
akin  to  fear,  the  heart  ever  and  anon  bounded 
•with  freedom  in  the  smile  of  the  old  man's 
eyes.  Plain  was  his  own  apparel — a  suit  of 
the  hodden-gray.  His  wife,  when  in  full  dress, 
did  not  remind  us  of  a  Quakeress,  for  a 
Quakeress  then  had  we  never  seen — but  we 
often  think  now,  when  in  company  with  a  sen- 
sible, cheerful,  and  comely-visaged  matron  of 
that  sect,  of  her  of  Logan  Braes.  No  waster 
was  she  of  her  tears,  or  her  smiles,  or  her 
words,  or  her  money,  or  her  meal — either 
among  those  of  her  own  blood,  or  the  stranger 
or  the  beggar  that  was  within  her  gates.  You 
heard  not  her  foot  on  the  floor — yet  never  was 
she  idle — moving  about  in  doors  and  out,  from 
morning  till  night,  so  placid  and  so  composed, 
and  always  at  small  cost  dressed  so  decently, 
so  becomingly  to  one  who  was  not  yet  old,  and 
had  not  forgotten — wh}'  should  she  not  remem- 
ber hi — that  she  was  esteemed  in  youth  a 
beauty,  and  that  it  was  not  for  want  of  a 
richer  and  younger  lover,  that  she  agreed  at 
last  to  become  the  wife  of  the  Laird  of  Logan 
Braes. 

Their  family  consisted  of  two  sons  and  a 
niece  ; — and  be  thou  who  thou  mayest  that  hast 
so  far  read  our  May-day,  we  doubt  not  that  thine 


eyes  will  glance — however  rapidly — over  an- 
other page,  nor  fling  it  contemptuously  aside, 
because  amidst  all  the  chance  and  change  of 
administrations,  ministries,  and  ministers  ia 
high  places,  there  murmur  along  the  channels 
of  our  memory  "the  simple  annals  of  the 
poor,"  like  unpolluted  streams  that  sweep  not 
by  city  walls. 

Never  were  two  brothers  more  unlike  in  all 
things — in  mind,  body,  habits,  and  disposition 
— than  Lawrie  and  Willie  Logan — and  we  see, 
as  in  a  glass,  at  this  very  moment,  both  their 
images.  "Wee  Wise  Willie" — for  by  that 
name  he  was  known  over  several  parishes — 
was  one  of  those  extraordinary  creatures  that 
one  may  liken  to  a  rarest  plant,  which  nature 
sows  here  and  there — sometimes  for  ever  un- 
regarded— among  the  common  families  of 
Flowers.  Early  sickness  had  been  his  lot — 
continued  with  scarcely  any  interruption  from 
his  cradle  to  school-years — so  that  not  only 
was  his  stature  stunted,  but  his  whole  frame 
was  delicate  in  the  extreme  ;  and  his  pale  small- 
featured  face,  remarkable  for  large,  soft,  down- 
looking,  hazel  eyes,  dark-lashed  in  their  lustre, 
had  a  sweet  feminine  character,  that  corre- 
sponded well  with  his  voice,  his  motions,  and 
his  in-door  pursuits — all  serene  and  composed, 
and  interfering  with  the  outgoings  of  no  other 
living  thing.  All  sorts  of  scholarship,  such  as 
the  parish  schoolmaster  knew,  he  mastered  as 
if  by  intuition.  His  slate  was  quickly  covered 
with  long  calculations,  by  which  the  most 
puzzling  questions  were  solved;  and  ere  he 
was  nine  years  old,  he  had  made  many  pretty 
mechanical  contrivances  with  wheels  and 
pulleys,  that  showed  in  what  direction  lay  the 
natural  bent  of  his  genius.  Languages,  too, 
the  creature  seemed  to  see  into  with  quickest 
eyes,  and  with  quickest  ears  to  catch  their 
sounds — so  that,  at  the  same  tender  age,  he 
might  have  been  called  a  linguist,  sitting  with 
his  Greek  and  Latin  books  on  a  stool  beside 
him  by  the  fireside  during  the  long  winter 
nights.  All  the  neighbours  who  had  any 
books,  cheerfully  lent  them  to  "  Wee  Wise 
Willie,"  and  the  Manse-boys  gave  him  many  a 
supply.  At  the  head  of  every  class  he,  of 
course,  was  found — but  no  ambition  had  he  to 
be  there ;  and  like  a  bee  that  works  among 
many  thousand  others  on  the  clover-lea,  heed- 
less of  their  murmurs,  and  intent  wholly  ou 
its  own  fragrant  toil,  did  he  go  from  task  to 
task — although  that  was  no  fitting  name  for  the 
studious  creature's  meditations  on  all  he  read 
or  wrought — no  more  a  task  for  him  to  grow  in. 
knowledge  and  in  thought,  than  for  a  lily  of  the 
field  to  lift  up  its  head  towards  the  sun.  That 
child's  religion  was  like  all  the  other  parts  of 
his  character — as  prone  to  tears  as  that  of  other 
children,  when  they  read  of  the  Divine  Friend 
dying  for  them  on  the  cross;  but  it  was  pro- 
founder  far  than  theirs,  when  it  shed  no  tears, 
and  only  made  the  paleness  of  his  countenance 
more  like  that  which  we  imagine  to  be  the 
paleness  of  a  phantom.  No  one  ever  saw  him 
angry,  complaining,  or  displeased  ;  for  angeli- 
cal indeed  was  his  temper,  purified,  like  gold 
in  fire,  by  suflTering.  He  shunned  not  the  com 
pany  of  other  children,  but  loved  all,  as  by 
them  all  he  was  more  than  beloved.    Ia  few 


176 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


of  their  plays  could  he  take  an  active  share ; 
but  sitting  a  little  way  off,  still  attached  to  the 
merry  brotherhood,  though  in  their  society  he 
had  no  part  to  enact,  he  read  his  book  on  the 
knoll,  or,  happy  dreamer,  sunk  away  among 
the  visions  of  his  own  thoughts.     There  was 
poetry  in  that  child's  spirit,  but  it  was  too  es- 
sentially blended  with  his  whole  happiness  in 
life,  often  to   be  imbodied  in   written  words. 
A  few  compositions  were    found  in  his  own 
small  beautiful  handwriting  after  his  death — 
hymns   and    psalms.      Prayers,   too,  had   his 
heart  indited — but  thc)'^  weve  not  in  measured 
language — framed,  in  his  devout  simplicity  on 
the  model  of  our  Lord's.     How  many  hundred 
times  have  we  formed  a  circle  round  him  in 
the  gloaming,  all  sitting  or  lying  on  ihe  greens- 
ward, before  the  dews  had   begun   to  descend, 
listening  to  his  tales  and  stories  of   holy  or 
heroic  men  and  women,  who  had  been  greatly 
good  and  glorious  in  the  days  of  old  !    Notun- 
endeared  to  his  imagination  were  the  patriots, 
who,  living  and  dying,  loved  the  liberties  of 
the    land — Tell — Bruce — or    Wallace,   he    in 
whose  immortal  name  a  thousand  rocks  rejoice, 
while  many  a  M-ood  bears  it  on  its  summits  as 
they  are  swinging  to  the  storm.     M^eak  as  a 
reed  that  is  shaken  in  the  wind,  or  the  stalk  of 
a  fldwcr  that  tremblingly  sustains  its  blossoms 
beneath   the    dews   that  feed  their  transitory 
lustre,  was  he  whose  lips  were  so  eloquent  to 
read  the  eulogies  of  mighty  men  of  war  riding 
mailed  through  bloody  battles.     What  matters 
it  that  this  frame  of  dust  be  frail,  and  of  tiny 
size — still  may  it  be  the  tenement  of  a  lordly 
spirit.     But  high  as  such  warfare  was,  it  satis- 
fied not  that  thoughtful  child — for  other  war- 
fare there  was  to  read  of,  which  was  to   him  a 
far  deeper  and  more  divine  delight — the  war- 
fare waged  by  good  men  against  the  legions 
of  sin,  and  closed  triumphantly  in  the  eye  of 
God — let  this  world  deem  as  it  will — on  ob- 
scurest death-beds,  or  at  the   stake,  or  on  the 
scaffold,  where  a  profounder  even  than  Sab- 
bath silence  glorifies  the  martyr  far  beyond 
any  shout  that  from   the  immense  multitude 
would  have  torn  the  concave  of  Ihe  heavens. 
What  a  contrast  to  that  creature  was  his 
elder  brother  !     Lawrie  was  eighteen  years  old 
when  first  we  visited  Logan  Braes,  and  was  a 
perfect   hero    in    strength    and   stature — Bob 
Howie  alone  his  equal — but  Bob  was  then  in 
the  West  Indies.     In  the  afternoons,  after  his 
work  was  over  in  the  fields  or  in  the  barn,  he 
had  pleasure  in  getting  us  Manse-boys  to  ac- 
company him  to  the  Moor-Lochs  for  an  hour's 
angling  or  two  in  the  evening,  when  the  large 
trouts  came  to  the  gravelly  shallows,  and,  as 
"we  waded  midleg-de^p,  would  sometimes  take 
the  fly  among  our  very  feet.     Or  he  would  go 
•with  us  into  the  heart  of  the  great  wood,  to 
show  us  where  the  foxes  had  their  earths — the 
party  being  sometimes  so  fortunate  as  to  see 
the  cubs  disporting  at  the  mouth  of  the  briery 
aperture  in  the  strong  and  root-bound  soil.     Or 
we  followed  him,  so  fir  as  he  thought  it  safe 
for  us  to  do  so,  up  the  foundations  of  the  castle, 
and  in  fear  and  wonder  that  no  repetition  of 
the  adventurous  feat  evcrdiminished,  saw  him 
take  the  young  starling  from   the  crevice  be- 
neath the  tuft  of  wall-flowers.     What  was  there 


of  the  bold  and  daring  that  Lawrie  Logan  was 
not,  in  our  belief,  able  to  perform  ?     We  were 
all  several  years  younger — boys  from  nine  to 
fifteen — and  he  had  shot  up  into  sudden  man- 
hood— not  only  into  its  shape  but  its  strength 
— yet  still  the  boyish  spirit  was  fresh  within 
him,  and  he  never  wearied  of  us  in  such  ex- 
cursions.    The  minister  had  a  good  opinion 
of  his  principles,  knowing  how  he  had  been 
brought  up,  and  did  not  discountenance  his 
visits  to  the  Manse,  nor  ours  to  Logan  Braes. 
Then  what  danger  could  we  be  in,  go  where 
we  might,  with  one  who  had  more  than  once 
shown  how  eager  he  was  to  risk  his  own  life 
when  that  of  another  was  in  jeopardy  ?  Gene- 
rous and  fearless  youth !     To  thee  we  owed 
our  own  life — although  seldom  is  that  rescue 
now  remembered — (for  what  will  not  in  this 
turmoiling  world  be  forgotten  ?)  when  in  pride 
of  the  newly-acquired  art  of  swimming,  we  had 
ventured — with  our  clothes  on  too — some  ten 
yards  into  the  Brother-Loch,  to  disentangle  our 
line  from  the  water-lilies.     It  seemed  that  a 
hundred  cords  had  got  entangled  round  our 
legs,  and  our  heart  quaked  too  desperately  to 
sutfer  us  to  shriek — but  Lawrie  Logan  had  his 
hand  on  us  in  a  minute,  and  brought  us   to 
shore  as  easily  as  a  Newfoundland  dog  lands 
a  bit  (if  floating  wood. 

But   that   was   a    momentary   danger,   and 
Lawrie  Logan  ran  but  small  risk,  you  will  say, 
in  saving  us ;  so  let  u.s  not  extol  that  instance 
of  his    intrepidity.      But   fancy   to    yourself, 
gentle  reader,  the   hideous  mouth  of  an  old 
coal-pit,  that  had  not  been  worked  for  time  im- 
memorial, overgrown  with  thorns,  and  briers, 
and  brackens,  but  still  visible  from   a  small 
mount  above  it,  for  some  yards  down  its  throat 
— the  very  throat  of  death  and  perdition.     But 
can  you  fancy  also    the  childish    and   super- 
stitious terror  with  which  we  all  regarded  that 
coal-pit,  for  it  was  said  to  be  a  hundred  fathom 
deep — with  water  at  the  bottom — so  that  you 
had   to   wait   for   many   moments — almost   a 
minute — before  you  heard  a  stone,  first  beating 
against  its  sides — from  one  to  the  other — plunge 
at  last  into  the  pool  profound.     In  that  very 
field,  too,  a  murder  had  been  perpetrated,  and 
the  woman's  corpse  flung  by  her  sweetheart 
into  that  coal-pit.     One  day  some  unaccount- 
able impulse  had  led  a  band  of  us  into  that 
interdicted  field — which  we  remember  was  not 
arable — but  said   to  be  a  place  where  a  hare 
was  alwaj's  sure  to  be  found  sitting  among  the 
binweeds   and   thistles.      A  sort  of  thrilling 
horror  urged  us  on  closer  and  closer  to  the 
mouth  of  the  pit — when  Wee  Wise  Willie's 
foot  slipping  on   the  brae,  he  bounded  with 
inexplicable  force  along — in  among  the  thorns, 
briers,  and  brackens — ihrough  the  whole  hang- 
ing mat  and  without  a  shriek,  down^-down — 
down  into  destruction.     We  all  saw  it  happen 
— every  one  of  us — and  it  is  scarcely  too  much 
to  say,  that  we  were  for  a  while  all  mad  with 
horror.     Yet   we   felt   ourselves   borne   back 
instinctively  from  the  horrible  pit — and  as  aid 
we  could  give  none,  we  listened  if  we  could 
hear  any  cry — but  there  was  none — and  we 
all  flew  together  out  of  the  dreadful  field,  and 
again  collecting  ourselves  together,  feared  to 
separate  on  the  different  roads  to  our  h<imes. 


MAY-DAY. 


177 


"Oh !  can  it  be  that  our  Wee  Wise  Willie  has 
this  moment  died  sic  a  death — and  no  a  single 
ane  amang  us  a'  greetin'  for  his  sake  ]"  said 
one  of  us  aloud;  ami  then  indeed  did  we  burst 
out  into  rueful  sobbing,  and  ask  one  another 
who  could  carry  such  tidings  to  Logan  Braes  1 
All  at  once  we  heard  a  clear,  rich,  mellow 
whistle  as  of  a  blackbird — and  there  with  his 
favourite  colley,  searching  for  a   stray  lamb 
among  the  knolls,  was    Lawrie   Logan,  M'ho 
hailed   us   with    a   laughing  voice,  and  then 
asked   us,  "  Whare  is  Wee  Willie  1     hae  ye 
flung  him  like  another  Joseph  into  the  pit]" 
The  consternation  of  our  faces  could  not  be 
misunderstood — whether  we  told  him  or  not 
what  had  happened  we  do  not  know — but  he 
staggered  as  if  he  would  have  fallen  down — 
and   then    ran   off  with  amazing  speed — not 
towards  Logan   Braes — but  the  village.     We 
continued  helplessly  to  wander  about  back  and 
forwards  along  the  near  edge  of  a  wood,  when 
we  beheld  a  multitude  of  people  rapidl}'  ad- 
vancing, and  in  a  few  minutes:  they  surrounded 
the  mouth  of  the  pit.     It  was  abcjut  the  very 
end  of  the  hay-harvest — and  many  ropes  that 
had  been  employed  that  very  day  in  the  lead- 
ing of  the  hay  of  the  Landlord  of  the  Inn,  who 
was  also  an  extensive  farmer,  were  tied  to- 
gether to  the  length  of  at  least  twenty  fathom. 
Hope  was  quite  dead — but  her  work  is  often 
done  by  Despair.     For  a  while  there  was  con- 
fusion  all  around  the  pit-mouth,  but  with  a 
white   fixed   face   and   glaring   eyes,  Lawrie 
Logan  advanced   to  the  very  brink,  with  the 
rope  bound  in   many  firm  folds  around  him, 
and  immediately  behind  him  stood  his  gray- 
headed    father,    unbonneted,  just   as   he   had 
risen  from  a  prayer.     "  Is't  my  ain  father  that's 
gaun  to  help  me  to  gang  doon  to  bring  up 
Willie's   body?      O!   merciful   God,  what   a 
judgment  is  this!      Father — father — Oh!   lie 
down  at  some  distance  awa'  frae  the  sight  o' 
this  place.     Kobin  Alison,  and  Gabriel  Strang, 
and  John  Borland,  'II  hand  the  ropes  firm  and 
safe.     0,  father — father — lie  down,  a  bit  apart 
frae  the  crowd ;  and  have  mercy  upon  him — 
O  thou,  great  God,  have  mercy  upon  him!" 
But  the  oid  man  kept  his  place;  and  the  only 
one  son  who  now  survived  to  him  disappeared 
within   the  jaws  of  the  same  murderous  pit, 
and   was   lowered   slowly  down,   nearer   and 
nearer   to   his  little  brother's  corpse.     They 
had  spoken  to  him  of  foul  air,  of  which  to 
breathe  is  death,  but  he  had  taken  his  reso- 
lution, and  not  another  word  had  been  said  to 
shake  it.     And  now,  for  a  short   time,  there 
was  no  weight  at  the  line,  except  that  of  its 
own  length.     It  was  plain  that  he  had  reached 
the  bottom  of  the  pit.     Silent  was  all  that  con- 
gregation, as  if  assembled  in  divine  worship. 
Again,  there  was  a  Aveight  at  the  rope,  and  in 
a  minute  or  two,  a  voice  was  heard  far  down 
the  pit  that  spread  a  sort  of  wild  hope — else, 
why  should  it  have  spoken    at  all — and  lo! 
the  child — not  like  one  of  the  dead — clasped 
in  the  arms  of  his  brother,  who  was  all  covered 
M'ith  dust  and  blood.     "  Fall  all  down  on  your 
knees — in  the  face  o'  heaven,  and  sing  praises 
to  God,  for  my  brother  is  yet  alive  !" 

During  that  Psalm,  father,  mother,  and  both 
their  sons — the  rescuer  and  the  rescued — and  , 
23 


their  sweet  cousin  too,  Annie  Raeburn,  the 
orphan,  were  lying  embraced  in  speechless— 
almost  senseless  trances;  for  the  agony  of 
such  a  deliverance  was  more  than  could  well 
by  mortal  creatures  be  endured. 

The  child  himself  was  the  first  to  tell  how 
his  life  had  been  miraculously  saved.  A  few 
shrubs  had  for  many  )^ears  been  growing  out 
of  the  inside  of  the  pit,  almost  as  far  down  as 
the  light  could  reach,  and  among  them  had  he 
been  entangled  in  his  descent,  and  held  fast. 
For  days,  and  weeks,  and  months,  after  that 
deliverance,  i'ew  persons  visited  Logan  Braes, 
for  it  was  thought  that  old  Laurence's  brain 
had  received  a  shock  from  which  it  might 
never  recover;  but  the  trouble  that  tried  him 
subsided,  and  the  inside  of  the  house  was  again 
quiet  as  before,  and  its  hospitable  door  open 
to  all  the  neighbours. 

Never  forgetful  of  his  primal  duties  had 
been  that  bold  youth — but  too  apt  to  forget  the 
many  smaller  ones  that  are  wrapped  round  a 
life  of  poverty  like  invisible  threads,  and  that 
cannot  be  broken  violently  or  carelessly,  with- 
out endangering  the  calm  consistency  of  all  its 
ongoings,  and  ultimately  causing  perhaps  great 
losses,  errors,  and  distress.  He  did  not  keep 
evil  society— but  neither  did  he  shun  it:  and 
having  a  pride  in  feats  of  strength  and  activity, 
as  was  natural  to  a  stripling  whose  corporeal 
faculties  could  not  be  excelled,  he  frequented 
all  meetings  where  he  was  likely  to  fall  in 
with  worthy  competitors,  and  in  such  trials  of 
power,  by  degrees  acquired  a  character  for 
recklessness,  and  even  violence,  of  which 
prudent  men  prognosticated  evil,  and  that 
sorely  disturbed  his  parents,  who  were,  in 
their  quiet  retreat,  lovers  of  all  peace.  With 
what  wonder  and  admiration  did  all  the  Manse- 
boys  witness  and  hear  reported  the  feats  of 
Lawrie  Logan  !  It  was  he  who,  in  pugilistic 
combat,  first  vanquished  Black  King  Carey 
the  Egyptian,  who  travelled  the  country  with 
two  wives  and  a  wagon  of  Staffordshire  pot- 
tery, and  had  struck  the  "  Yokel,"  as  he  called 
Lawrie,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  tents  on  Led- 
drie  Green,  at  the  great  annual  Baldernoch 
fair.  Six  times  did  the  bare  and  bronzed 
Egyptian  bite  the  dust — nor  did  Lawrie  Logan 
always  stand  against  the  blows  of  one  whose 
provincial  fame  was  high  in  England,  as  the 
head  of  th^  Rough-and-Ready  School.  Even 
now — as  in  an  ugly  dream — we  see  the  com- 
batants , alternately  prostrate,  and  returning  to 
the  encounter,  covered  with  mire  and  blood 
All  the  women  left  the  Green,  and  the  old  men 
shook  their  heads  at  such  unchristian  work ; 
but  Lawrie  Logan  did  not  want  backers  in  the 
shepherds  and  the  ploughmen,  to  see  fair  play 
against  all  the  attempts  of  the  Showmen  and. 
the  Newcastle  horse-cowpers,  who  laid  their 
money  thick  on  the  King;  till  a  right-hander 
in  the  pit  of  the  stomach,  which  had  nearly 
been  the  gipsy's  everlasting  quietus,  gave  the 
victory  to  Lawrie,  amid  acclamations  that 
would  have  fitlier  graced  a  triumph  in  a  better 
cause.*  But  that  day  was  an  evil  day  to  all  at 
Logan  Braes.  A  recruiting  sergeant  got  Law- 
rie into  the  tent,  over  which  floated  the  co 
lours  of  tlie  42d  Regiment,  and  in  the  intoxica- 
tion of  victor}',  whisky,  and  the  bagpipe,  the 


178 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


young  champion  ^vas  as  fairly  enlisted  into  his 
Majesty's  service,  as  ever  young  girl,  without 
almost  knowing  it,  was  married  at  Gretna- 
Green  ;  and  as  the  42d  were  under  orders  to 
sail  in  a  week,  gold  could  not  have  bought  off 
such  a  man,  and  Lawrie  Logan  went  on  board 
a  transport. 

Logan  Braes  was  not  the  same  place — in- 
deed, the  whole  parish  seemed  altered — after 
Lawrie  was  gone,  and  our  visits  were  thence- 
forth any  thing  but  cheerful  ones,  going  by 
turns  to  inquire  for  Willie,  who  seemed  to  be 
pining  away — not  in  any  deadly  disease,  but 
just  as  if  he  himself  knew,  that  without  ailing 
much  he  was  not  tD  be  a  long  liver.  Yet  nearly 
two  years  passed  on,  and  all  that  time  the 
principle  of  life  had  seemed  like  a  flickering 
flame  within  him,  that  when  you  think  it  ex- 
piring or  expired,  streams  up  again  wiih  sur- 
prising brightness,  and  continues  to  glimmer 
ever  steadily  with  a  protracted  light.  Every 
week — nay,  almost  every  day,  they  feared  to 
lose  him — yet  there  he  still  was  at  morning 
and  evening  prayers.  The  third  spring  after 
the  loss  of  his  brother  w.as  remarkably  mild, 
and  breathing  with  west-winds  that  came  soft- 
ened over  many  woody  miles  from  the  sea. 
He  seemed  stronger,  and  more  cheerful,  and 
expressed  a  wish  that  the  Manse-boys,  and 
some  others  of  his  companions,  would  come 
to  Logan  Braes,  and  once  again  celebrate  May- 
da)'.  There  we  ail  sat  at  the  long  table,  and 
both  parents  did  their  best  to  look  cheerful 
during  the  feast.  Indeed,  all  that  had.  once 
been  harsh  and  forbidding  in  the  old  man's 
looks  and  manners,  was  now  softened  down 
by  the  perpetual  yearnings  at  his  heart  to- 
■\vards"the  distant  far  and  absent  long,"  nor 
less  towards  hini  that  peaceful  and  pious  child 
whom  every  hour  he  saw,  or  thought  he  saw, 
awaiting  a  call  from  the  eternal  voice.  Al- 
though sometimes  sadness  fell  across  us  like 
a  shadow,  yet  the  hours  passed  on  as  May-day 
hours  should  do ;  and  what  with  our  man)- 
toned  talk  and  laughter,  the  cooing  of  the 
pigeons  on  the  roof,  and  the  twittering  of  the 
swallows  beneath  the  eaves,  and  the  lark-songs 
ringing  like  silver  bells  over  all  the  heavens, 
it  seemed  a  day  that  ought  to  bring  good 
tidings — or,  the  Soldier  himself  returning  from 
the  wars  to  bless  the  eyes  of  his  parents  once 
more,  so  that  they  might  die  in  peace.  "  Hea- 
ven hold  us  in  its  keeping,  for  there's  his 
wraith  !" ejaculated  Annie  Raeburn.  "It  passed 
before  the  window,  and  my  Lawrie,  I  now 
know,  is  with  the  dead!" — Bending  his  stately 
head  beneath  the  lintel  of  the  door,  in  the  dress, 
and  with  the  bearing  of  a  soldier,  Lawrie  Lo- 
gan stepped  again  across  his  father's  threshold 
and,  ere  he  well  uttered  "  God  be  with  you  all !" 
Willie  was  within  his  arms,  and  on  his  bosom. 
His  father  and  his  mother  rose  not  from  their 
chairs,  but  sat  still,  with  faces  like  ashes.  But 
we  boys  could  not  resist  our  joy,  and  shouted 
his  name  aloud — while  Luath,  from  his  sleep 
in  the  corner,  leapt  on  his  master  breast-high, 
and  whining  his  dumb  delight,  frisked  round 
him  as  of  yore,  when  impatient  to  snuff  the 
dawn  on  the  hill-side.  "  Let  us  go  out  and 
play,"  said  a  boy's  voice,  and  issuing  some- 
what seriously  into  the  sunshine,  we  left  the 


family  within  to  themselves,  and  then  walked 
away,  without  speaking,  down  to  the  Bridge. 

After  the  lapse  of  an  hour  or  more,  and 
while  we  were  all  considering  whether  or  no 
we  should  return  to  the  house,  the  figure  of 
Annie  Raeburn  was  seen  coming  down  the 
brae  towards  the  party,  in  a  way  very  unlike 
her  usual  staid  and  quiet  demeanour,  and 
stopping  at  some  distance,  to  b(^kon  with  her 
hand  more  particularly,  it  was  thought,  on 
ourselves,  as  we  stood  a  few  yards  apart  from 
the  rest.  "  Willie  is  worse,"  were  the  only 
words  she  said,  as  we  hastened  back  together; 
and  on  entering  the  room,  we  found  the  old 
man  uncertainly  pacing  the  floor  by  himself, 
but  with  a  composed  countenance.  "He  ex- 
pressed a  wish  to  see  you — but  he  is  gone!" 
We  followed  into  Willie's  small  bedroom  and 
stud}-,  and  beheld  him  already  laiil  out,  and  his 
mother  silting  as  calmly  beside  him  as  if  she 
were  watching  his  sleep.  "Sab  not  sac  sair, 
Lawrie — God  was  gracious  to  let  him  live  to 
this  day,  that  he  might  dee  in  his  briiher's 
arms." 

The  sun  has  mounted  high  in  heaven,  while 
thus  we  have  been  dreaming  away  the  hours 
— a  dozen  miles  at  least  have  we  sluwly  wan- 
dered over,  since  morning,  along  pleasant  b)'- 
paths,  where  never  dust  lay,  or  from  gate  to 
gate  of  pathless  enclosures,  a  trespasser  fear- 
less of  those  threatening  nonentities,  spring- 
guns.  There  is  the  turnpike-road — the  great 
north  and  south  road — for  it  is  either  the  one 
or  the  other,  according  to  the  airt  towards 
which  you  choose  to  turn  your  face.  Behold 
a  little  WATsinE  Ins,  neatly  thatched,  and  with 
while-washed  front,  and  sign-board  hanging 
from  a  tree,  on  which  are  painted  the  figures 
of  two  jelly  gentlemen,  one  in  kilts  and  the 
other  in  breeches,  shaking  hands  cautiously 
across  a  running  brook.  The  meal  of  all 
meals  is  a  paulo-post-meridian  breakfast.  The 
rosiness  of  the  combs  of  the  strapping  hens  is 
good  augury  ; — hark,  a  cackle  from  the  barn — 
another  egg  is  laid — and  chanticleer,  stretching 
himself  upon  claw-tip,  and  clapping  his  wings 
of  the  bonny  beaten  gold,  crows  aloud  to  his 
sultana  till  the  welkin  rings.  "Turn  to  the 
left,  sir,  if  you  please,"  quoth  a  comely  matron ; 
and  we  find  ourselves  snugly  seated  in  an  arm- 
chair, not  wearied,  but  to  rest  willing,  while 
the  clock  ticks  pleasantly,  and  we  take  no  note 
of  time  but  by  its  gain ;  for  here  is  our  jour- 
nal, in  which  we  shall  put  down  a  few  jottings 
for  Mat-Dat.  Three  boiled  eggs — one  to  each 
penny-roll — are  sufficient,  under  any  circum- 
stances, along  with  the  same  number  fried 
with  mutton-ham,  for  the  breakfast  of  a  Gen- 
tleman and  a  Tory.  Nor  do  we  remember — 
when  tea-cups  have  been  on  a  proper  scale — 
ever  to  have  wished  to  go  beyond  the  Golden 
Rule  of  Three.  In  politics,  we  confess  that 
we  are  rather  ultra;  but  in  all  things  else  wc 
love  moderation.  "Come  in,  my  bonny  little 
lassie — ye  needna  keep  keekin'  in  that  gate 
fra  ahint  the  door" — and  in  a  few  minutes  the 
curly-pated  prattler  is  murmuring  on  our  knee- 
The  sonsie  wife,  well  pleased  with  the  sight, 
and  knowing,  from  our  kindness  to  children, 
that  we  are  on  the  same  side  of  politics  with 
hcrguderaan — Ex-sergeant  in  the  Black  Watch, 


MAY-DAY. 


179 


and  once  Orderly  to  Garth  himself — brings  out 
her  ain  bottle  from  the  spence — a  hollow  square, 
and  green  as  emerald.  Bless  the  gurgle  of  its 
honest  mouth  !  With  prim  lips  mine  hostess 
kisses  the  glass,  previously  letting  fall  a  not 
inelegant  curtsey — for  she  had,  we  now  learned, 
been  a  lady's  maid  in  her  youth  to  one  who  is 
indeed  a  lady,  all  the  time  her  lover  was  abroad 
in  the  army,  in  Egypt,  Ireland,  and  the  West 
Indies,  and  Malta,  and  Guernsej',  Sicily,  Por- 
tugal, Holland,  and,  we  think  she  said,  Corfu. 
One  of  the  children  has  been  sent  to  the  field, 
where  her  husband  is  sowing  barley,  to  tell 
him  that  there  i^  fear  lest  dinner  cool ;  and  the 
mistress  now  draws  herself  up  in  pride  of  his 
noble  appearance,  as  the  stately  Highlander 
salutes  us  with  the  respectful  but  bold  air  of 
one  who  has  seen  some  service  at  home  and 
.  abroad.  Never  knew  we  a  man  make  other 
than  a  good  bow,  who  had  partaken  freely  in  a 
charge  of  bayonets. 

Shenstone's  lines  about  always  meeting  the 
warmest  welcome  in  an  inn,  are  very  natural 
and  tender — as  most  of  his  compositions  are, 
when  he  was  at  all  in  earnest.  For  our  own 
part,  we  cannot  complain  of  ever  meeting  any 
other  welcome  than  a  warm  one,  go  where  we 
may;  for  we  are  not  obtrusive,  and  where  we 
are  not  either  liked,  or  loved,  or  esteemed,  or 
admired,  (that  last  is  a  strong  word,  yet  we  all 
have  our  admirers,)  we  are  exceeding  charj' 
of  the  light  of  our  countenance.  But  at  an 
inn,  the  only  kind  of  welcome  that  is  indis 
pensable,  is  a  civil  one.  When  that  is  not 
forthcoming,  we  shake  the  dust,  or  the  dirt, 
off  our  feet,  and  pursue  our  journey,  well  as- 
sured that  a  few  milestones  will  bring  us  to  a 
humaner  roof.  Incivility  and  surliness  have 
occasionally  given  us  opportunities  of  behold- 
ing rare  celestial  phenomena — meteors — fall- 
ing and  shooting  stars — the  Aurora  Borealis, 
in  her  shifting  splendours — haloes  round  the 
moon,  variously  bright  as  the  rainbow — elec- 
trical arches  forming  themselves  on  the  sky  in 
a  manner  so  wondrously  beautiful,  that  we 
should  be  sorry  to  hear  them  accounted  for  by 
philosophers — one  half  of  the  horizon  blue,  and 
without  a  cloud,  and  the  other  driving  tempes- 
tuously like  the  sea-foam,  with  waves  mountain- 
high — and  divinest  show  of  all  for  a  solitar}' 
night-wandering  man,  who  has  any  thing  of  a 
soul  at  all,  far  and  wide,  and  high  up  into  the 
gracious  heavens.  Planets  and  Stars  all  burn- 
ing as  if  their  urns  were  newly  fed  with 
light,  not  twinkling  as  they  do  in  a  dewy  or  a 
vapoury  night,  although  then,  too,  are  the 
softened  or  veiled  luminaries  beautiful — but 
large,  full,  and  free  over  the  whole  firmament 
— a  galax}'' of  shining  and  unanswerable  argu- 
ments in  proof  of  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul. 
The  whole  world  is  improving;  nor  can  there 
be  a  pleasanter  proof  of  that  than  this  verj' 
wayside  inn — ycleped  the  SALrTATiox.  What 
a  miserable  pot-house  it  was  long  ago,  with  a 
rusty-hinged  door,  that  would  neither  open  nor 
shut— neither  let  you  out  nor  in — immovable 
and  intractable  to  foot  or  hand — or  all  at  once, 
when  you  least  expected  it  to  yield,  slamming 
to  with  a  bang ;  a  constant  puddle  in  front 
during  rainy  weather,  and  heaped  up  dust  in 
dry — roof  partly  thatched,  partly  slated,  partly 


tiled,  and  partly  open  to  the  elements,  with  its 
naked  rafters.  Broken  windows  repaired  with 
an  old  petticoat,  or  a  still  older  pair  of  breeches, 
and  walls  that  had  always  been  plastered  and 
better  plastered  and  worse  plastered,  in  frosty 
weather — all  labour  in  vain,  as  crumbling 
patches  told,  and  variegated  streaks,  and  stains 
of  dismal  ochre,  meanest  of  all  colours,  and 
still  symptomatic  of  want,  mismanagement, 
bankruptcy,  and  perpetual  flittings  from  a  tene- 
ment that  was  never  known  to  have  paid  any 
rent.  Then  what  a  pair  of  drunkards  were 
old  Saunders  and  his  spouse !  Yet  never  once 
were  they  seen  drunk  on  a  Sabbath,  or  a  fast- 
day — regular  kirk-goers,  and  attentive  observ- 
ers of  ordinances.  They  had  not  very  many 
children,  yet,  pass  the  door  when  you  might, 
you  were  sure  to  hear  a  squall  or  a  shriek,  or 
the  ban  of  the  mother,  or  the  smacking  of  the 
palm  of  the  hand  on  the  part  of  the  enemy 
easiest  of  access;  or  you  saw  one  of  the 
ragged  fiends  pursued  by  a  parent  round  the 
corner,  and  brought  back  by  the  hair  of  the 
head  till  its  eyes  were  like  those  of  a  Chinese. 
Now,  what  decency  —  what  neatness  —  what 
order — in  this  household — this  private  public! 
into  which  custom-^  rs  step  like  neighbours  on 
a  visit,  and  are  served  with  a  heartiness  and 
good-will  that  deserve  the  name  of  hospitality, 
for  they  are  gratuitous,  and  can  only  be  repaid 
in  kind.  A  limited  prospect  does  that  latticed- 
window  command — and  the  small  panes  cut 
objects  into  too  many  parts — little  more  than 
the  breadth  of  the  turnpike  road,  and  a  hun- 
dred 3'ards  of  the  same,  to  the  north  and  to  the 
south,  with  a  few  budding  hedgerows,  half  a 
dozen  trees,  and  some  green  braes.  Yet  could 
we  sit  and  moralize,  and  intellectualize,  for 
ho"rs  at  this  window,  nor  hear  the  striking 
clock. 

There  trips  by  a  blooming  maiden  of  middle 
degree  all  alone — the  more's  the  pity — yet  per- 
fectly happy  in  her  own  society,  and  one  we 
venture  to  say  who  never  received  a  love-let- 
ter, valentines  excepted,  in  all  her  innocent 
days.  A  fat  man  sitting  by  himself  in  a  gig! 
somewhat  red  in  the  face,  as  if  he  had  dined 
early,  and  not  so  sure  of  the  road  as  his  horse, 
who  has  drunk  nothing  but  a  single  pailful  of 
water,  and  is  anxious  to  get  to  town  that  he 
may  be  rubbed  down,  and  see  oats  once  more. 
Scamper  away,  ye  joyous  schoolboys,  and,  for 
your  sake,  may  that  cloud  breathe  forth  rain 
and  breeze,  before  you  reach  the  burn,  which 
you  seem  to  fear  may  run  dry  before  you  can 
see  the  Pool  where  the  two-pounders  lie.  Me- 
thinks  we  know  that  old  woman,  and  of  the 
first  novel  we  write  she  shall  be  the  heroine. 
Ha  !  a  brilliant  bevy  of  mounted  maidens,  in 
riding-habits,  and  Spanish  hats,  with  "  swaling 
feathers" — sisters,  it  is  easy  to  see,  and  daugh- 
ters of  one  whom  we  either  loved,  or  thought 
we  loved;  but  now  they  say  she  is  fat  and  vul- 
gar, is  the  devil's  own  scold,  and  makes  her 
servants  and  her  husband  lead  the  lives  of 
slaves.  All  that  we  can  say  is,  that  once  on  a 
time  it  was  tout  une  autre  chose;  for  a  smaller 
foot,  and  a  slimmer  ankle,  a  more  delicate 
waist,  arms  more  lovely,  reposing  in  their 
gracefulness  beneath  her  bosom,  tresses  of 
brighter  and  more  burnished  auburn — such 


180 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


starlike  eyes,  thrilling  without  seeking  to  reach 
the  soul — But  phoo  !  phoo  !  phoo  !  she  mar- 
ried a  jolted-headed  squire  with  two  thousand 
acres,  and,  in  self-defence,  has  grown  fat,  vul- 
gar, and  a  scold.  There  is  a  Head  for  a  painter ! 
and  what  perfect  peace  and  placidity  all  over 
the  Blind  Man's  countenance  !  He  is  not  a 
beggar,  although  he  lives  on  alms — those  sight- 
less orbs  ask  not  for  charity,  nor  yet  those 
withered  hands,  as,  staff-supported,  he  stops 
at  the  kind  voice  of  the  traveller,  and  tells  his 
story  in  a  few  words.  On  the  ancient  Dervise 
moves,  with  his  long  silvery  hair,  journeying 
contentedly  in  darkness  towards  the  eternal 
light.  A  gang  of  gi)isies  !  with  their  numer- 
ous assery  laden  with  horn-spoons,  pots,  and 
pans,  and  black-eyed  children.  We  should  not 
be  surprised  to  read  some  day  in  the  newspa- 
pers, that  the  villain  who  leads  the  van  had 
been  executed  for  burglary,  arson,  and  murder. 
That  is  the  misfortune  of  having  a  bad  physi- 
ognomy, a  sidelong  look,  a  scarred  cheek,  and 
a  cruel  grin  about  the  muscles  of  the  mouth  ; 
to  say  nothing  about  rusty  hair  protruding 
through  the  holes  of  a  brown  hat,  not  made  f  jr 
the  wearer — long,  sinewy  arms,  all  of  one 
thickness,  terminating  in  huge,  hairy,  horny 
hands,  chiefly  knuckles  and  nails — a  sham- 
bling gait,  notwithstanding  that  his  legs  are 
finely  proportioned,  as  if  the  night  prowler 
were  cautious  not  to  be  heard  by  the  sleep- 
ing house,  nor  to  awaken-^so  noiseless  his 
stealthy  advances — the  unchained  mastiff  in 
his  kennel. 

But,  hark !  the  spirit-stirring  music  of  fife 
and  drum  !  A  whole  regiment  of  soldiers  on 
their  march  to  replace  another  whole  regiment 
of  soldiers — and  that  is  as  much  as  we  can  be 
expected  to  know  about  their  movements. 
Food  fur  the  cannon's  mouth;  but  the  maw  of 
war  has  been  gorged  and  satiated,  and  the 
glittering  soap-bubbles  of  reputation,  blown  by 
windy-clieekod  Fame  from  the  bowl  of  her 
pipe,  have  all  burst  as  they  have  been  clutched 
by  the  hands  of  tall  fellows  in  red  raiment, 
and  with  feathers  on  their  heads,  just  before 
going  to  lie  down  on  what  is  called  the  bed 
of  honour.  Melancholy  indeed  to  think,  that 
all  these  fine,  fierce,  ferocious,  fire-eaters  are 
doomed,  but  for  some  unlooked-for  revolution 
in  the  affairs  of  Europe  and  the  world,  to  die 
in  their  beds !  Yet  there  is  some  comfort  in 
thinking  of  the  composition  of  a  Company 
of  brave  defenders  of  their  country.  It  is,  we 
shall  suppose,  Seventy  strong.  Well,  jot  down 
three  ploughmen,  genuine  clodhoppers,  chaw- 
bacons  S(nis  pcur  el  sans  reproche,  except  that  the 
overseers  of  the  parish  were  upon  them  with 
orders  of  afliliation ;  and  one  shepherd,  who 
made  contradictory  statements  about  the  num- 
ber of  the  spring  lambs,  and  in  whose  house  had 
been  found  during  winter  certain  fleeces,  for 
which  no  ingenuity  could  account ;  a  laird's 
son,  long  known  by  the  name  of  the  Ne'er- 
doweel ;  a  Man  of  tailors,  forced  to  accept  the 
bounty-money — during  a  protracted  strike — 
not  dungs  they,  but  flints  all  the  nine;  a  bar- 
ber, like  many  a  son  of  genius,  mined  by 
his  wit,  and  who,  after  being  driven  from  pole 
to  pole,  found  refuge  in  the  army  at  last;  a 
Hanliiup'.  butcher,  once  a  bully,  and   now  a 


poltroon;  two  of  the  Seven  Young  Men — ail 
that  now  survive — impatient  of  the  drudgery 
of  the  compting-house,  and  the  injustice  of 
the  age — but  they,  we  believe,  are  in  the  band 
— the  triangle  and  the  serpent;  twelve  cotton- 
spinners  at  the  least ;  six  weavers  of  woollens ; 
a  couple  of  colliers  from  the  bowels  of  the 
earth  ;  and  a  score  of  miscellaneous  rabble — 
flunkies  long  out  of  place,  and  unable  to  live 
on  their  liveries — felons  acquitted,  or  that  have 
dreed  their  punishment — picked  men  from  the 
shilling  galleries  of  playhouses — and  the  elite 
of  the  refuse  and  sweepings  of  the  jails.  Look 
how  all  the  rogues  and  reprobates  march  like 
one  man  !  Alas  !  was  it  of  such  materials  that 
our  conquering  army  was  made  ? — were  such 
the  heroes  of  Talavera,  Salamanca,  Vittoria, 
and  Waterloo? 

Why  not,  and  what  then  ?  Heroes  are  but 
men  after  all.  Men,  as  men  go,  are  the  ma- 
terials of  which  heroes  are  made;  and  re- 
cruits in  three  years  ripen  into  veterans.  Cow- 
ardice in  one  campaign  is  disciplined  into 
courage,  fear  into  valour.  In  presence  of  the 
enemy,  pickpockets  become  patriots — mem- 
bers of  the  swell  mob  volunteer  on  forlorn 
hopes,  and  step  out  from  the  ranks  to  head  the 
storm  !  Lord  bless  you  !  have  you  not  stu- 
died sympathy  and  resprit  de  corps?  An  army 
fifty  thousand  strong  consists,  we  shall  sup- 
pose, in  equal  portions  of  saints  and  sinners; 
and  saints  and  sinners  are  all  English,  Irish, 
Scottish.  What  wonder,  then,  that  they  drive 
all  resistance  to  the  devil,  and  go  on  from  vic- 
tory to  victory,  keeping  all  the  cathedrals  and 
churches  in  England  hard  at  work  with  all  their 
organs,  from  Christmas  to  Christmas,  blowing 
Tt  Dcumf  You  must  not  be  permitted  too 
curiously  to  analyze  the  composition  of  the 
British  army  or  the  British  navy.  Look  at 
them,  think  of  them  as  Wholes,  with  Nelson  or 
Wellington  the  head,  and  in  one  slump  pray 
God  to  bless  the  defenders  of  the  throne,  the 
hearth,  and  the  altar. 

The  bagsrage-wagons  halt,and  some  refresh- 
ments are  sent  for  to  the  women  and  children. 
Ay,  creatures  not  far  advanced  in  their  teens 
are  there — a  year  cfr  two  ago,  at  school  or  ser- 
vice, happy  as  the  day  was  long,  now  mothers, 
with  babies  at  their  breasts — happy  still  per- 
haps ;  but  that  pretty  face  is  wofully  wan — that 
hair  did  not  use  to  be  so  dishevelled — and  bony, 
and  clammy,  and  blue-veined  is  the  hand  that 
lay  so  white,  and  warm,  and  smooth,  in  the 
grasp  of  the  seducer.  Yet  she  thinks  she  is 
his  wife;  and,  in  tnilh,  there  is  a  ring  on  her 
marriage-finger.  But,  should  the  regiment 
rmliark,  so  many  women,  and  no  more,  are 
suffered  to  go  with  a  company;  and,  should 
one  of  the  lots  not  fall  on  her,  she  may  take 
of  her  husband  an  everlasting  farewell. 

The  Highflier  Coach !  carrying  six  in,  and 
twelve  outsides — driver  and  guard  excluded — 
rate  of  motion  eleven  miles  an  hour,  with  stop- 
pages. Why,  in  the  name  of  Heaven,  are  all 
people  noM-a-days  in  such  haste  and  hurry  1 
Is  it  absolutely  necessary  that  one  and  all  of 
this  dozen  and  a  half  Protestants  and  Catholics 
— alike  anxious  for  emancipation — should  be 
at  a  particular  place,  at  one  particular  moment 
of  time  out  of  the  twenty  four  hours  given  to 


MAY-DAY. 


181 


man  for  motion  and  for  rest  1  Confident  are 
we  that  that  obese  elderly  gentleman  beside 
the  coachman — whose  ample  rotundity  is  en- 
cased in  that  antique  and  almost  obsolete  in- 
vention, a  spenser — needed  not  to  have  been 
so  carried  in  a  whirlwind  to  his  comfortable 
home.  Scarcely  is  there  time  for  pity  as  we 
behold  an  honest  man's  wife,  pale  as  putiy 
in  the  face  at  a  tremendous  swing,  or  lounge, 
or  lurch  of  the  Highflier,  holding  like  grim 
death  lo  the  balustrades.  But  umbrellas,  pa- 
rasols, plaids,  shawls,  bonnets,  and  great-coats 
with  as  many  necks  as  Hydra — the  Pile  of  Life 
has  disappeared  in  a  cloud  of  dust,  and  the 
faint  bugle  tells  that  already  it  has  spun  and 
reeled  onwards  a  mile  on  its  destination. 

But  here  comes  a  vehicle  at  more  rational 
pace.  Mercy  on  us — a  hearse  and  six  horses 
returning  leisurely  from  a  funeral!  Not  im- 
probable that  the  person  who  has  just  quitted 
it,  had  never,  till  he  was  a  corpse,  got  higher 
than  a  single-horse  Chay — yet  no  fewer  than 
half-a-dozen  hackneys  must  be  hired  for  his 
dust.  But  clear  the  way!  "Hurra!  hurra! 
he  rides  a  race,  'lis  for  a  thousand  pound !" 
Another,  and  another,  and  another — all  work- 
ing away  with  legs  and  knees,  arms  and  shoul- 
ders, on  cart-horses  in  the  Brooze — the  Brooze  ! 
The  hearse-horses  take  no  sort  of  notice  of  the 
cavalry  of  cart  and  plough,  but  each  in  turn 
keeps  its  snorting  nostrils  deep  plunged  in  the 
pail  of  meal  and  water — for  well  may  they  be 
thirsty — the  kirkyard  being  far  among  the  hills, 
and  the  roads  not  yet  civilized.  "  May  I  ask, 
friend,"  addressing  ourself  to  the  hearscman, 
"whom  you  have  had  inside?"'  "Only  Dr. 
Sandilands,  sir — if  you  are  going  my  way, 
you  may  have  a  lift  for  a  dram!"  We  had 
always  thought  there  was  a  superstition  in 
Scotland  against  marrying  in  the  month  of 
May ;  but  it  appears  that  people  are  wedded 
and  bedded  in  that  month  too — some  in  warm 
sheets — and  some  in  cold — cold — cold — drip- 
ping damp  as  the  grave. 

But  we  mut-t  up,  and  off.  Not  many  gentle- 
men's houses  in  the  parish — that  is  to  say,  old 
family  seats;  for  of  modern  villas,  or  boxes, 
inhabited  by  persons  imagining  themselves 
gentlemen,  and,  for  any  thing  we  know  to  the 
contrar}',  not  wholly  deceived  in  that  belief, 
there  is  rather  too  great  an  abundance.  Four 
family  seats,  however,  there  certainl}'  are,  of 
sufficient  antiquity  to  please  a  lover  of  the 
olden  time ;  and  of  those  four,  the  one  which 
we  used  to  love  best  to  look  at  w-as — The 
Maixs.  No  need  to  describe  it  in  many  words. 
A  Hall  on  a  river  side,  embosomed  in  woods 
— holms  and  meadows  winding  away  in  front, 
with  their  low  thick  hedgerows  and  stately 
single  trees — on — on — on — as  far  as  the  ej-e 
can  reach,  a  crowd  of  grove-tops — elms  chiefljs 
or  beeches — and  a  beautiful  boundary  of  blue 
hills.  "Good-day,  Sergeant  Stewart!  farewell, 
Ma'am — Airewell!"  And  in  half  an  hour  we 
are  sitting  in  the  moss-house  at  the  edge  of  the 
outer  garden,  and  gazing  up  at  the  many  win- 
dowed gray  walls  of  the  Mains,  and  its  high 
steep-ridged  roof,  discoloured  bj  the  weather- 
stains  of  centuries.  "The  taxe  ?  on  such  a 
house,"  quod  Sergeant  Stewart,  "are  of  them- 
selves enough  to  ruin  a  man  of  moderate  for- 


tune— so  the  Mains,  sir,  has  been  uninhabited 
for  a  good  many  years."  But  he  had  been 
speaking  to  one  who  knew  far  more  about  the 
Mains  than  he  could  do — and  who  was  not 
sorry  that  the  Old  Place  was  allowed  to  stand, 
undisturbed  by  any  rich  upstart,  in  the  vene- 
rable silence  of  its  own  decay.  And  this  is 
the  moss-house  that  we  helped  to  build  with 
our  own  hands — at  least  to  hang  the  lichen 
tapestry,  and  stud  the  cornice  with  shells  !  We 
were  one  of  the  paviers  of  that  pebbled  floor 
— and  that  bright  scintillating  piece  of  spar, 
the  centre  of  the  circle,  came  all  the  way  from 
Derbyshire  in  the  knapsack  of  a  geologist, 
w^ho  died  a  Professor.  It  is  strange  the  roof 
has  not  fallen  in  long  ago ;  but  what  a  slight 
ligature  will  often  hold  together  a  heap  of  ruins 
from  tumbling  into  nothing  !  The  old  moss- 
house,  though  somewhat  decrepit,  is  alive; 
and,  if  these  swallows  don't  take  care,  they 
will  be  stunning  themselves  against  our  face, 
jerking  out  and  in,  through  door  and  window, 
twenty  times  in  a  minute.  Yet  with  all  that 
twittering  of  swallows — and  with  all  that  fre- 
quent crowing  of  a  cock — and  all  that  cawing 
of  rooks — and  cooing  of  doves — and  lowing 
of  cattle  along  the  holms — and  bleating  of 
lambs  along  the  braes — it  i>;  nevertheless  a 
pensive  place;  and  here  sit  we  like  a  hermit, 
world-sick,  and  to  be  revived  only  by  hear- 
kening in  the  solitude  to  the  voices  of  other 
years. 

What  more  mournful  thought  than  that  of  a 
Decayed  Family — a  high-born  race  gradually 
worn  out,  and  finally  ceasing  to  be !  The  re- 
mote ancestors  of  this  House  were  famous 
men  of  war — then  some  no  less  famous  states- 
men— then  poets  and  historians — then  minds 
still  of  fine,  but  of  less  energetic  mould — and 
last  of  all,  the  mystery  of  madness  breaking 
suddenly  forth  from  spirits  that  seemed  to  have 
been  especially  formed  for  profoundest  peace. 
There  were  three  sons  and  two  daughters,  un- 
degencrate  from  the  ancient  stateliness  of  the 
race — the  oldest  on  his  approach  to  manhood 
erect  as  the  young  cedar,  that  seems  conscious 
of  being  destined  one  day  to  be  the  tallest  tree 
in  the  woods.  The  twin-sisters  were  ladies 
indeed  !  Lovely  as  often  are  the  low-born,  no 
maiden  ever  stepped  from  her  native  cottage- 
door,  even  in  a  poet's  dream,  with  such  an  air 
as  that  with  which  those  fair  beings  walked 
along  their  saloons  and  lawns.  Their  beauty 
no  one  could  at  all  describe — and  no  one  be- 
held it  who  did  not  say  that  it  transcended  all 
that  imagination  had  been  able  to  picture  of 
angelic  and  divine.  As  the  sisters  were,  so 
were  the  brothers — distinguished  above  all 
their  mates  conspicuously,  and  beyond  all 
possibility  of  mistake  ;  so  that  strangers  could 
single  them  out  at  once  as  the  heirs  of  beauty, 
that,  according  to  veritable  pictures  and  true 
traditions,  had  been  an  unalienable  gift  from 
nature  to  that  family  ever  since  it  bore  the 
name.  For  the  last  three  generations  none 
of  that  house  had  ever  reached  even  the  meri- 
dian of  life — and  those  of  whoni  we  now  speak 
had  from  childhood  been  orphans.  Yet  how 
joyous  and  free  were  they  one  and  all,  and. 
how  often  from  this  cell  did  evening  hear  their 
holy  harmonies,  as  the  Five  united  together 

Q 


182 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


with  voice,  harp,  and  dulcimer,  till  the  stars 
themselves  rejoiced  ! — One  morning,  Louisa, 
"who  loved  the  dewy  dawn,  was  met  bewildered 
in  her  mind,  and  perfectly  astray — with  no 
symptom  of  having  been  suddenly  alarmed  or 
terrified — but  with  an  unrecognising  smile, 
and  eyes  scarcely  changed  in  their  expression, 
although  they  knew  not — but  rarely — on  whom 
they  looked.  It  was  but  a  few^  months  till  she 
died — and  Adelaide  was  laughing  carelessly 
on  her  sister's  funeral  day — and  asked  why 
mourning  should  be  worn  at  a  marriage,  and 
a  plumed  hearse  sent  to  take  away  the  bride. 
Fairest  of  God's  creatures  !  can  it  be  that  thou 
art  still  alive  ?  Not  with  cherubs  smiling 
round  thy  knees — not  walking  in  the  free 
realms  of  earth  and  heaven  with  thy  husband 
— the  noble  youth,  who  loved  thee  from  thy 
childhood  when  himself  a  child;  but  oh!  that 
such  misery  can  be  beneath  the  sun — shut  up 
in  some  narrow  cell  perhap.s — ho  one  knows 
where — whether  in  this  thy  native  kingdom,  or 
in  some  foreign  land — with  those  hands  mana- 
cled— a  demon-light  in  eyes  once  most  angeli- 
cal— and  ringing  through  undistinguishable 
days  and  nights  imaginary  shriekings  and 
yellings  in  thy  poor  distracted  brain  ! — Down 
went  the  ship  with  all  her  crew  in  which 
Percy  sailed ; — the  sabre  must  have  been  in 
the  hand  of  a  skilful  swordsman  that  in  one 
of  the  Spanish  battles  hewed  Sholto  down ; 
and  the  gentle  Richard,  whose  sou! — while  he 
possessed  it  clearly — was  for  ever  among  the 


sacredbooks.although  toolonghe  was  as  a  star 
vainly  sought  for  in  a  cloudy  region,  yet  did 
for  a  short  time  starlike  reappear — and  on  his 
death-bed  he  knew  us,  and  the  other  mortal 
creatures  weeping  beside  him,  and  that  there 
was  One  who  died  to  save  sinners. 

Let  us  away — let  us  away  from  this  over- 
powering place — and  make  our  escape  frona 
such  unendurable  sadness.  Is  this  fit  celebra- 
tion of  merry  May-day  f  Is  this  the  spirit  in 
which  we  ought  to  look  over  the  bosom  of  the 
earth,  all  teeming  with  buds  and  flowers  just 
as  man's  heart  should  be  teeming — and  why 
not  ours — with  hopes  and  joys  J  Yet  beautiful 
as  this  May-day  is — and  all  the  country  round 
which  it  so  tenderly  illumines,  we  came  not 
hither,  a  solitary  pilgrim  from  our  distant 
home,  to  indulge  ourself  in  a  joyful  happiness. 
No,  hither  came  we  purposely  to  mourn 
among  the  scenes  which  in  bo)'hood  we  sel- 
dom beheld  through  tears.  And  therefore 
have  we  chosen  the  gayest  day  of  all  the  year, 
when  all  life  is  rejoicing,  from  the  grasshopper 
among  our  feet  to  the  lark  in  the  cloud.  Me- 
lancholy, and  not  mirth,  doth  he  hope  to  find, 
who  after  a  life  of  wandering — and  maybe  not 
without  sorrow— comes  back  to  gaze  on  the 
banks  and  braes  whereon,  to  his  eyes,  once 
grew  the  flowers  of  Paradise.  Flowers  of  Pa- 
radise are  ye  still — for,  praise  be  to  Heaven  ! 
the  sense  of  beauty  is  still  strong  within  us — 
and  methinks  we  could  feel  the  beauty  of  this 
scene  though  our  heart  were  broken. 


SACRED  POETPvY. 


CHAPTER  L 

We  have  often  exposed  the  narrowness  and 
weakness  of  that  dogma,  so  pertinaciously  ad- 
hered to  by  persons  of  cold  hearts  and  limited 
understandings,  that  Religion  is  not  a  fit  theme 
for  poetical  genius,  and  that  Sacred  Poetry  is 
beyond  the  powers  of  uninspired  man.  We 
do  not  know  that  the  grounds  on  which  that 
dogma  stands  have  ever  been  formally  stated 
by  any  writer  but  Samuel  Johnson  ;  and  there- 
fore with  all  respect,  nay,  veneration,  for  his 
memory,  we  shall  now  shortly  examine  his 
statement,  which,  though,  as  we  think,  alto- 
gether unsatisfactory  and  sophistical,  is  yet  a 
splendid  specimen  of  false  reasoning,  and 
therefore  worthy  of  being  exposed  and  over- 
thrown. Dr.  Johnson  was  not  oAen  utterly 
wrong  in  his  mature  and  considerate  judg- 
ments respecting  any  subject  of  paramount 
importance  to  the  virtue  and  happiness  of 
mankind.  He  was  a  good  and  wise  being; 
but  sometimes  he  did  grievously  err;  and 
never  more  so  than  in  his  vain  endeavour  to 
exclude  from  the  province  of  poetry  its  noblest, 
highest,  and  holiest  domain.  Shut  the  gates 
of  heaven  against  Poetry,  and  her  flights  along 
this  earth  will  be  feebler  and  lower — her  wings 
rCogged  and  heavy  by  the  attraction  of  matter 

and  her  voice — like  that  of  the  caged  lark, 


so  diflerent  from  its  hymning  when  lost  to 
sight  in  the  sky — will  fail  to  call  forth  the 
deepest  responses  from  the  sanctuar)'  of  our 
spirit. 

"  Le*  no  pious  ear  be  ofl^ended,"  says  John- 
son, "if  I  advance,  in  opposition  to  many  au- 
thorities, that  poetical  devotion  cannot  often 
please.  The  doctrines  of  religion  may  indeed 
be  defended  in  a  didactic  poem  ;  and  he  who 
has  the  happy  power  of  arguing  in  verse,  will 
not  lose  it  because  his  subject  is  sacred.  A 
poet  may  describe  the  beauty  and  the  grandeur 
of  nature,  the  flowers  of  spring  and  the  har- 
vests of  autumn,  the  vicissitudes  of  the  tide 
and  the  revolutions  of  the  sky,  and  praise  his 
Maker  in  lines  which  no  reader  shall  lay  aside. 
The  subject  of  the  disputation  is  not  piety,  but 
the  motives  to  piety ;  that  of  the  description  is 
not  God,  but  the  works  of  God.  Contempla- 
tive piety,  or  the  intercourse  between  God  and 
the  human  soul,  cannot  be  poetical.  Man,  ad- 
mitted to  itnplore  the  mercy  of  his  Creator,  and 
plead  the  merits  of  his  Redeemer,  is  already  in 
a  higher  state  than  poetry  can  confer. 

"The  essence  of  poetry  is  invention;  such 
invention  as,  by  producing  something  un- 
expected, surprises  and  delights.  The  topics 
of  devotion  are  few,  and  being  few  are  univer- 
sally known ;  but  few  as  they  are,  they  can  be 
made  no  more ;  they  can  receive  no  grace  from 


SACRED  POETRY. 


183 


novelty  of  sentiment,  and  very  little  from  no- 
velty of  expression.  Poetry  pleases  by  ex- 
hibiting an  idea  more  grateful  in  the  mind 
than  things  themselves  afford.  This  effect 
proceeds  from  the  display  of  those  parts  of 
nature  which  attract,  and  the  concealment  of 
those  that  repel,  the  imagination;  but  religion 
must  be  shown  as  it  is ;  suppression  and  addi- 
tion equally  corrupt  it;  and  such  as  it  is,  it  is 
known  already.  From  poetry  the  reader  justly 
expects,  and  from  good  poetry  always  obtains, 
the  enlargement  of  his  comprehension  and  the 
elevation  of  his  fancy ;  but  this  is  rarely  to  be 
hoped  by  Christians  from  metrical  devotion. 
Whatever  is  great,  desirable,  or  tremendous, 
is  comprised  in  the  name  of  the  Supreme  Be- 
ing. Omnipotence  cannot  be  exalted ;  Infi- 
nity cannot  be  amplified ;  Perfection  cannot  be 
improved. 

"  The  employments  of  pious  meditation  are 
faith,  thanksgiving,  repentance,  and  supplication. 
Faith,  invariably  uniform,  cannot  be  invested 
by  fancy  with  decorations.  Thanksgiving, 
though  the  most  joyful  of  all  holy  effusions, 
yet  addressed  to  a  Being  without  passions,  is 
confined  to  a  few  modes,  and  is  to  be  felt 
rather  than  expressed.  Repentance,  trembling 
in  the  presence  of  the  Judge,  is  not  at  leisure 
for  cadences  and  epithets.  Supplication  to 
man  may  diffuse  itself  through  many  topics 
of  persuasion ;  but  supplication  to  God  can 
only  cry  for  mercy. 

"  Of  sentiments  purely  religious,  it  will  be 
found  that  the  most  simple  expression  is  the 
most  sublime.  Poetry  loses  its  lustre  and  its 
power,  because  it  is  applied  to  the  decoration 
of  something  more  excellent  than  itself.  All 
that  pious  verse  can  do  is  to  help  the  memory 
and  delight  the  ear,  and  for  these  purposes  it 
may  be  very  useful ;  but  it  supplies  nothing  to 
the  mind.  The  ideas  of  Christian  Theology 
are  too  simple  for  eloquence,  too  sacred  f^or 
fiction,  and  too  majestic  for  ornament;  to  re- 
commend them  by  tropes  and  figures,  is  to 
magnify  by  a  concave  mirror  the  sidereal  he- 
misphere." 

Here  Dr.  Johnson  confesses  that  sacred  sub- 
jects are  not  unfit — that  they  are  fit — for  di- 
dactic and  descriptive  poetry.  Now,  this  is  a 
very  wide  and  comprehensive  admission  ;  and 
being  a  right,  and  natural,  and  just  admission, 
it  cannot  but  strike  the  thoughtful  reader  at 
once  as  destructive  of  the  great  dogma  by 
which  Sacred  Poetry  is  condemned.  The  doc- 
trines of  Religion  may  be  defended,  he  allows, 
in  a  didactic  poem — and,  pray,  how  can  they 
be  defended  unless  they  are  also  expounded  1 
And  how  can  they  be  expounded  without  being 
steeped,  as  it  were,  in  religious  feeling  1  Let 
such  a  poem  be  as  didactic  as  can  possibly  be 
imagined,  still  it  must  be  pervaded  by  the  very 
spirit  of  religion — and  that  spirit,  breathing 
throughout  the  whole,  must  also  be  frequently 
expressed,  vividly,  and  passionately,  and  pro- 
foundly, in  particular  passages;  and  if  so, 
must  it  not  be,  in  the  strictest  sense,  a  Sacred 
poem  ! 

"But,"  says  Dr.  Johnson,  "the  subject  of 
the  disputation  is  not  piet}',  but  the  motives  to 
piety."  Why  introduce  the  word  "  disputa- 
tion," as  if  it  characterized  justly  and  entirely 


all  didactic  poetry  1  And  who  ever  heard  of 
an  essential  distinction  between  piety,  and 
motives  to  piety  1  Mr.  James  Montgomery,  in 
a  very  excellent  Essay  prefixed  to  that  most 
interesting  collection,  "The  Christian  Poet," 
well  observes,  that  "  motives  to  piety  must  be 
of  the  nat-ure  of  piety,  otherwise  they  could 
never  incite  to  it — the  precepts  and  sanctions 
of  the  Gospel  might  as  well  be  denied  to  be 
any  part  of  the  Gospel."  And  for  our  own 
parts,  we  scarcely  know  what  piety  is,  sepa- 
rated from  its  motives — or  how,  so  separated, 
it  could  be  expressed  in  words  at  all. 

With  regard,  again,  to  descriptive  poetry, 
the  argument,  if  argument  it  may  be  called,  is 
still  more  lame  and  impotent.  "  A  poet,"  it  is 
said,  "  may  describe  the  beauty  and  the  gran- 
deur of  nature,  the  flowers  of  the  spring  and 
the  harvests  of  autumn,  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
tide  and  the  revolutions  of  the  sky,  and  praise 
his  Maker  in  lines  which  no  reader  shall  lay 
aside."  Most  true  he  may;  but  then  we  are 
told,  "  the  subject  of  the  description  is  not  God, 
but  the  works  of  God  !"  Alas !  what  trifling 
— what  miserable  trifling  is  this  !  In  the  works 
of  God,  God  is  felt  to  he  by  us  his  creatures, 
whom  he  has  spiritually  endowed.  We  can- 
not look  on  them,  even  in  our  least  elevated 
moods,  without  some  shadow  of  Jove  or  awe ; 
in  our  most  elevated  moods,  we  gaze  on  them 
with  religion.  By  the  very  constitution  of  our 
intelligence,  the  effects  speak  of  the  cause. 
We  are  led  by  nature  up  to  nature's  God.  The 
Bible  is  not  the  only  revelation — there  is  an- 
other— dimmer  but  not  less  divine — for  surely 
the  works  are  as  the  words  of  God.  No  great 
poet,  in  describing  the  glories  and  beauties  of 
the  external  world,  is  forgetful  of  the  existence 
and  attributes  of  the  Most  High.  That  thought, 
and  that  feeling,  animate  all  his  strains ;  and 
though  he  dare  not  to  describe  Him  the  Ineffa- 
ble, he  cannot  prevent  his  poetry  from  being 
beautifully  coloured  by  devotion,  tinged  by 
piety — in  its  essence  it  is  religious. 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  qualifications  oi 
restrictions  with  which  Dr.  Johnson  is  willing 
to  allow  that  there  may  be  didactic  and  de- 
scriptive sacred  poetry,  are  wholly  unmean- 
ing, and  made  to  depend  on  distinctions  which 
have  no  existence. 

Of  narrative  poetry  of  a  sacred  kind,  Mr. 
Montgomery  well  remarks,  Johnson  makes  no 
mention,  except  it  be  implicated  with  the  state- 
ment, that  "  the  ideas  of  Chi'istian  Theology 
are  too  sacred  for  fiction — a  sentiment  more 
just  than  the  admirers  of  Milton  and  Klop- 
stock  are  willing  to  admit,  without  almost  ple- 
nary indulgence  in  favour  of  these  great,  but 
not  infallible  authorities."  Here  Mr.  Montgo- 
mery expresses  himself  very  cautiously — per- 
haps rather  too  much  so — for  he  leaves  us  in 
the  dark  about  his  own  belief  But  this  we  do 
not  hesitate  to  say,  that  though  there  is  great 
danger  of  wrong  being  done  to  the  ideas  of 
Christian  theology  by  poetry — a  wrong  which 
must  be  most  painful  to  the  whole  inner  being 
of  a  Christian  ;  yet  that  there  seems  no  neces- 
sity of  such  a  wrong,  and  that  a  ereat  poet, 
guarded  by  awe,  and  fear,  and  love,  may  move 
his  wings  unblamed,  and  to  the  ?lorv  of  God, 
even  amongst  the  most  awful  sanctities  of  hi'^ 


184 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


faith.  These  sanctities  may  be  too  awful  for 
"  fiction" — but  fiction  is  not  the  word  here,  an)' 
more  than  disputation  was  the  word  there. 
Substitute  for  it  the  word  poetry  ;  and  then,  re- 
flecting on  that  of  Isaiah  and  of  David,  con- 
versant with  the  Holy  of  Hohes,  we  feel  that  it 
need  not  profane  those  other  sanctities,  if  it  be, 
like  its  subject,  indeed  divine.  True,  that  those 
bards  were  inspired — with  them 

the  name 

Of  prophet  and  of  poet  was  the  same  ; 

but  still,  the  power  in  the  soul  of  a  great  poet, 
not  in  that  highest  of  senses  inspired,  is,  we 
may  say  it,  of  the  same  kind — inferior  but  in 
degree;  for  religion  itself  is  always  an  inspira- 
tion. It  is  felt  to  be  so  in  the  prose  of  holy 
men — Why  not  in  their  poetry  ? 

If  these  views  be  just,  and  we  have  express- 
ed them  "boldly,  yet  humbly" — all  that  remains 
to  be  set  aside  of  Dr.  Johnson's  argument  is, 
"that  contemplative  piety,  or  the  intercourse 
between  God  and  man,  cannot  be  poetical. 
Man,  admitted  to  implore  the  mercv  of  his  Cre- 
ator, and  plead  the  merits  of  his  Redeemer,  is 
already  in  a  higher  state  than  poetry  can 
confer." 

There  is  something  very  fine  and  true  in  the 
sentiment  here;  but  the  sentiment  is  only  true 
in  some  cases,  not  in  all.  There  are  diflerent 
degrees  in  the  pious  moods  of  the  most  pious 
spirit  that  ever  sought  communion  with  its  God 
and  its  Saviour.  Some  of  these  are  awe- 
struck and  speechless.     That  line, 

"Come,  then,  e.Tpressivecilcnre,  muse  his  prnise  !" 
denies  the  power  of  poetry  to  be  adequate  to 
adoration,  while  the  line  itself  is  most  glorious 
poetry.  The  temper  even  of  our  fallen  spirits 
may  he  too  divine  for  any  words.  Then  the 
creature  kneels  mute  before  its  Maker.  But 
are  there  not  other  states  of  mind  in  which  we 
feel  ourselves  drawn  near  to  God,  when  there 
is  no  such  awful  speechlessness  laid  upon  us 
— but  when,  on  the  contrary,  our  tongues  are 
loosened,  and  the  heart  that  burns  within  will 
speak  T  Will  speak,  perhaps,  in  song — in  the 
inspiration  of  our  piety  breathing  forth  hymns 
and  psalms — poetry  indeed — if  there  be  poetry 
on  this  earth?  Why  may  we  not  say  that  the 
spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect — almost  per- 
fect, by  such  visitations  from  heaven — will 
break  forth — "rapt,  inspired,"  into  poetry, 
which  may  be  called  holy,  sacred,  divine  1 

We  feel  as  if  treading  on  forbidden  ground — 
and  therefore  speak  reverently  ;  but  still  we  do 
not  fear  to  say.  that  between  that  highest  state 
of  contemplative  piety  which  must  be  mule, 
down  to  that  lowest  state  of  the  same  feeling 
which  evanishes  and  blends  into  mere  human 
emotion  as  between  crehture  and  creature, 
ihere  are  infinite  degrees  of  emotion  which 
may  be  all  imbodied,  without  offence,  in  words 
— and  if  so  imbodied,  with  sincerity  and  hu- 
mility, will  be  poetry,  and  poetry  too  of  the 
inost  beautiful  and  affecting  kind. 

"Man,  admitted  to  implore  the  mercy  of  his 
Creator,  and  plead  the  merits  of  his  Redeemer, 
IS  already  in  a  higher  state  than  poetry  can 
confer."  Most  true,  indeed.  But,  though  po- 
etry did  not  confer  that  higher  state,  poetry 
may  nevertheless,  in  some  measure   and   to 


some  degree,  breathe  audibly  some  of  the 
emotions  which  constitutes  its  blessedness; 
poetry  may  even  help  the  soul  to  ascend  to. 
those  celestial  heights ;  because  poetry  may 
prepare  it,  and  dispose  it  to  expand  itself,  and 
open  itself  out  to  the  highest  and  holiest  influ- 
ences of  religion;  for  poetrj'  there  may  be  in- 
spired directly  from  the  word  of  God,  using 
the  language  and  strong  in  the  spirit  of  that 
word — unexistent  but  for  the  Old  and  New 
Testament. 

We  agree  with  Mr.  Montgomery,  that  the 
sum  of  Dr.  Johnson's  argument  amounts  to 
this — that  contemplative  piety,  or  the  inter- 
course between  God  and  the  human  soul,  cav- 
not  be  poriinil.  But  here  we  at  once  ask  our- 
selves, what  does  he  mean  by  poetical  ]  "The 
essence  of  poetry,"  he  says,  "is  invention — 
such  invention  as,  by  producing  something 
unexpected,  surprises  and  delights."  Here, 
again,  there  is  confusion  and  sophistry.  There 
is  much  high  and  noble  poetry  of  which  inven- 
tion, such  invention  as  is  here  spoken  of,  is 
not  the  essence.  Devotional  poeir)'  is  of  that 
character.  Who  would  require  something  un- 
expected and  surprising  in  a  strain  of  thanks- 
giving, repentance,  or  supplication?  Such 
feelings  as  these,  if  rightly  expressed,  may  ex- 
alt or  prostrate  the  soul,  without  much — with- 
out any  aid  from  the  imagination — except  in 
as  far  as  the  imagination  will  work  under  the 
power  of  every  great  emotion  that  does  not  ab- 
solutely confound  mortal  beings,  and  humble 
them  down  even  below  the  very  dust.  There 
may  be  "  no  grace  from  novelty  of  sentiment," 
ami  "very  little  from  novelty  of  expression" — 
to  use  Dr.  Johnson's  words — for  it  is  neither 
grace  nor  novelty  that  the  spirit  of  the  poet  is 
seeking — "the  strain  we  hear  is  of  a  higher 
mood ;"  and  "  few  as  the  topics  of  devotion 
may  be,"  (but  are  they  few  ?)  and  "  univer- 
sally known,"  they  are  all  commensurate — nay, 
far  more  than  commensurate  with  the  whole 
power  of  the  soul — never  can  they  become  un- 
aflecting  while  it  is  our  lot  to  die;  even  from 
the  lips  of  ordinary  men,  the  words  that  flow 
on  such  topics  flow  effeciually,  if  they  are  ear- 
nest, simple,  and  sincere ;  but  from  the  lips  of 
genius,  inspircti  by  religion,  who  shall  dare  to 
say  that,  on  such  topics,  words  have  not  flowed 
that  are  felt  to  be  poetry  almost  worthy  of  the 
Celestial  Ardours  around  the  throne,  and  by 
their  majest}-  to  "  link  us  to  the  radiant  angels," 
than  whom  we  were  made  but  a  little  lower, 
and  with  whom  we  may,  when  time  shall  be 
no  more,  be  equalled  in  heaven  ? 

We  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  Dr.  Johnson's 
doctrine  of  the  tffcd  of  poetry  is  wholly  false. 
If  it  do  indeed  please,  by  exhibiting  an  idea 
more  grateful  to  the  mind  than  thing's  them- 
selves aff()rd,  that  is  tmly  because  the  things 
themselves  are  imperfect — more  so  than  suits 
the  aspirations  of  a  spirit,  always  aspiring 
because  immortal,  to  a  higher  sphere — a  higher 
order  of  being.  But  when  God  himself  is, 
with  all  awe  and  reverence,  made  the  subject 
of  song — then  it  is  the  office — the  sacred  office 
of  poetry — not  to  exalt  the  subject,  but  to  exalt 
the  soul  that  contemplates  it.  That  poetry 
can  do,  else  whv  does  human  nature  glory  in 
the  "Paradise  Lost?" 


SACRED  POETRY. 


185 


"Whatever  is  great,  desirable,  or  tremen- 
dous, is  comprised  in  the  name  of  the  Supreme 
Being.  Omnipotence  cannot  be  exalted — In- 
finity cannot  be  amplified — Perfection  cannot 
be  improved."  Should  not  this  go  to  prohibit 
all  speech — all  discourse — all  sermons  con- 
cerning the  divine  attributes'!  Immersed  as 
thty  are  in  matter,  our  souls  wax  dull,  and  the 
attributes  of  the  Deit}'^  are  but  as  mere  names. 
Those  attributes  cannot,  indeed,  be  exalted  by 
poetry.  "The  perfection  of  God  cannot  be 
improved" — nor  was  it  worthy  of  so  wise  a 
man  so  to  speak ;  but  while  the  Creator  abideth 
in  his  own  incomprehensible  Being,  the  crea- 
ture, too  willing  to  crawl  blind  and  hoodwinked 
along  the  earth,  like  a  worm,  may  be  raised  by 
the  voice  of  the  charmer,  "  some  sweet  singer 
of  Israel,"  from  his  slimy  track,  and  suddenly 
be  made  to  soar  on  wings  up  into  the  ether. 

Would  Dr.  Johnson  have  declared  the  use- 
lessness  of  Natural  Theology?  On  the  same 
ground  he  must  have  done  so,  to  preserve  con- 
sistency in  his  doctrine.  Do  we,  by  exploring 
wisdom,  and  power,  and  goodness,  in  all  ani- 
mate and  inanimate  creation,  exalt  Omnipo- 
tence, amplify  infinity,  or  improve  perfection? 
We  become  ourselves  exalted  by  such  divine 
contemplations — by  knowing  the  structure  of 
a  rose-leaf  or  of  an  insect's  wing.  We  are  re- 
minded of  what,  alas  !  we  too  often  forget,  and 
exclaim,  "Our  Father  which  art  in  Heaven, 
hallowed  be  thy  name !"  And  while  science 
explores,  may  not  poetry  celebrate  the  glories 
and  the  mercies  of  our  God  ? 

The  argument  against  which  we  contend 
gets  weaker  and  weaker  as  it  proceeds — the 
gross  misconception  of  the  nature  of  poetry  on 
which  it  is  founded  becomes  more  and  more 
glaring — the  paradoxes,  dealt  out  as  confidently 
as  if  they  were  self-evident  truths,  more  and 
more  repulsive  alike  to  our  feelings  and  our 
understandings.  "The  employments  of  pious 
meditation  are  faith,  thanksgiving,  repentance, 
and  supplication.  Faith,  invariably  uniform, 
cannot  be  invested  by  fancy  with  decorations. 
Thanksgiving,  though  the  most  joyful  of  all 
holy  effusions,  yet  addressed  to  a  Being  supe- 
rior to  us,  is  confined  to  a  few  modes,  and  is 
to  be  felt  rather  than  expressed.  Repentance, 
trembling  in  the  presence  of  the  Judge,  is  not 
at  leisure  for  cadences  and  epithets.  Suppli- 
cation to  men  may  diflfuse  itself  through  many 
topics  of  persuasion  ;  but  supplication  to  God 
can  only  cry  for  mercy."  What  a  vain  attempt 
authoritatively  to  impose  upon  the  common 
sense  of  mankind !  Faith  is  not  invariably 
uniform.  To  preserve  it  unwavering — un- 
quaking — to  save  it  from  lingering  or  from 
sudden  death — is  the  most  diflicult  service  to 
which  the  frail  spirit — frail  even  in  its  greatest 
strength — is  called  every  day — every  hour — 
of  this  troubled,  perplexing,  agitating,  and 
often  most  unintelligible  life  !  "  Liberty  of 
will,"  says  Jeremy  Taylor,  "  is  like  the  motion 
of  a  magnetic  needle  towards  the  north,  full  of 
trembling  and  uncertainty  till  it  be  fixed  in  the 
beloved  point :  it  wavers  as  long  as  it  is  free, 
and  is  at  rest  when  it  can  choose  no  more.  It 
is  humility  and  truth  to  allow  to  man  this 
liberty ;  and,  therefore,  for  this  we  may  lay  our 
faces  in  the  dust,  and  confess  that  our  dignity 
S4 


and  excellence  suppose  misery,  and  are  im- 
perfection, but  the  instrument  and  capacity  of 
all  duty  and  all  virtue."  Happy  he  whose 
faith  is  finally  "fixed  in  the  beloved  point!" 
But  even  of  that  faith,  what  hinders  the  poet 
whom  it  has  blessed  to  sing?  While,  of  its 
tremblings,  and  veerings,  and  variations,  why 
may  not  the  poet,  whose  faith  has  experienced, 
and  still  may  experience  them  all,  breathe 
many  a  melancholy  and  mournful  lay,  as- 
suaged, ere  the  close,  by  the  descent  of  peace? 

Thanksgiving,  it  is  here  admitted,  is  the 
"most  joyful  of  all  holy  effusions;"  and  the 
admission  is  sufficient  to  prove  that  it  cannot 
be  "confined  to  a  few  modes."  "Out  of  the 
fulness  of  the  heart  the  tongue  speaketh;"  and 
though  at  times  the  heart  will  be  too  full  for 
speech,  yet  as  often  even  the  coldest  lips  prove 
eloquent  in  gratitude — yea,  the  very  dumb  do 
speak — nor,  in  excess  of  joy,  know  the  miracle 
that  has  been  wrought  upon  them  by  the  power 
of  their  own  mysterious  and  high  enthusiasm. 

That  "  repentance,  trembling  in  the  presence 
of  the  Judge,  should  not  be  at  leisure  for  ca- 
dences and  epithets,"  is  in  one  respect  true; 
but  nobody  supposes  that  during  such  mo- 
ments— or  hours — poetry  is  composed ;  and 
surely  when  they  have  passed  away,  which 
they  must  do,  and  the  mind  is  left  free  to  me- 
ditate upon  them,  and  to  recall  them  as  sha- 
dows of  the  past,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent 
them  from  being  steadily  and  calmly  contem- 
plated, and  depictured  in  somewhat  softened 
and  altogether  endurable  light,  so  as  to  become 
proper  subjects  even  of  poetry — that  is,  proper 
subjects  of  such  expression  as  human  nature 
is  prompted  to  clothe  with  all  its  emotions,  as 
soon  as  they  have  subsided,  after  a  swell  or  a 
storm,  into  a  calm,  either  placid  altogether,  or 
still  bearing  traces  of  the  agitation  that  has 
ceased,  and  have  left  the  whole  being  self- 
possessed,  and  both  capable  and  desirous  of 
indulging  itself  in  an  after-emotion  at  once 
melancholy  and  sublime.  Then,  repentance 
will  not  only  be  "at  leisure  for  cadences  and 
epithets,"  but  cadences  and  epithets  will  of 
themselves  move  harmonious  numbers,  and 
give  birth,  if  genius  as  well  as  piety  be  there, 
to  religious  poetry.  Cadences  and  epithets  are 
indeed  often  sought  for  with  care,  and  pains, 
and  ingenuity ;  but  they  often  come  forth  un- 
sought; and  never  more  certainly  and  more 
easily  than  when  the  mind  recovers  itself  from 
some  oppressive  mood,  and,  along  with  a  cer- 
tain sublime  sadness,  is  restored  to  the  fuL 
possession  of  powers  that  had  for  a  short 
severe  season  been  overwhelmed,  but  after- 
wards look  back,  in  very  inspiration,  on  the 
feelings  that  during  their  height  were  nearly 
unendurable,  and  then  unfit  for  any  outward 
and  palpable  form.  The  criminal  trembling 
at  the  bar  of  an  earthly  tribunal,  and  with  re- 
morse and  repentance  receiving  his  doom, 
might,  in  like  manner,  be  wholly  unabie  to  set 
his  emotions  to  the  measures  of  speech ;  out 
when  recovered  from  the  shock  by  pardon,  or 
reprieve,  or  submission,  is  there  any  reason 
why  he  should  not  calmly  recall  the  miseries 
and  the  prostation  of  spirit  attendant  on  that 
hour,  and  give  them  touching  and  pathetic  ex- 


pression 


a2 


186 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


"Supplication  to  man  may  diffuse  itself 
through  many  topics  of  persuasion ;  but  sup- 
plication to  God  can  only  cry  for  mercy." 
And  in  that  cry  we  say  that  there  may  be 
poetry;  for  the  God  of  Mercy  suffers  his  crea- 
tures to  approach  his  throne  in  supplication, 
with  words  which  they  have  learned  when 
supplicating  one  another;  and  the  feeling  of 
being  forgiven,  which  we  are  graciously  per- 
mitted to  believe  may  follow  supplication, 
and  spring  from  it,  may  vent  itself  in  many 
various  and  most  affecting  forms  of  speech. 
Men  will  supplicate  God  in  many  other  words 
besides  those  of  doubt  and  of  despair;  hope 
will  mingle  with  prayer;  and  hope,  as  it  glows, 
and  burns,  and  expands,  will  speak  in  poetry 
•^else  poetry  there  is  none  proceeding  from 
any  of  our  most  sacred  passions. 

Dr.  Johnson  says,  "Of  sentiments  purely 
religious,  it  will  be  found  that  the  most  simple 
expression  is  the  most  sublime.  Poetry  loses 
its  lustre  and  its  power,  because  it  is  applied 
to  the  decoration  of  something  more  excellent 
than  itself."  Here  he  had  in  his  mind  the 
most  false  notions  of  poetry,  which  he  had 
evidently  imagined  to  be  an  art  despising  sim- 
plicity— whereas  simplicity  is  its  very  soul. 
Simple  expression,  he  truly  says,  is  in  religion 
most  sublime — and  why  should  not  poetry  be 
simple  in  its  expression  ?  Is  it  not  always  so 
— when  the  mood  of  mind  it  expresses  is  sim- 
ple, concise,  and  strong,  and  collected  into  one 
great  emotion?  But  he  uses — as  we  see — the 
terms  "lustre"  and  "decoration" — as  if  poetry 
necessarily,  by  its  very  nature,  was  always 
ambitious  and  ornate;  whereas  we  all  know, 
that  it  is  often  in  all  its  glory  direct  and  simple 
as  the  language  of  very  childhood,  and  for  that 
reason  sublime. 

With  such  false  notions  of  poetry,  it  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  Dr.  Johnson,  enlight- 
ened man  as  he  was,  should  have  concluded 
his  argument  with  this  absurdit)- — "The  ideas 
of  Christian  theology  are  too  simple  for  elo- 
quence, loo  sacred  for  fiction,  and  too  majestic 
for  ornament;  to  recommend  them  by  tropes 
and  figures,  is  to  magnify  by  a  concave  mirror 
the  sidereal  hemisphere."  No.  Simple  as 
they  are — on  them  have  been  bestowed,  and  by 
them  awakened,  the  highest  strains  of  elo- 
quence— and  here  we  hail  the  shade  of  Jeremy 
Taylor  alone — one  of  the  highest  that  ever 
soared  from  earth  to  heaven;  sacred  as  they 
are,  they  have  not  been  desecrated  by  the  fic- 
tions— so  to  call  them — of  John  Milton;  ma- 
jestic as  are  the  heavens,  their  majesty  has 
not  been  lowered  by  the  ornaments  that  the 
rich  genius  of  the  old  English  divines  has  so 
profusely  hung  around  them,  like  dewdrops 
glistening  on  the  fruitage  of  the  Tree  of  Life. 
Tropes  and  figures  are  nowhere  more  nu- 
merous and  refulgent  than  in  the  Scriptures 
themselves,  from  Isaiah  to  St.  John  ;  and,  mag- 
nificent as  are  the  "  sidereal  heavens"  when 
the  eye  looks  aloft,  they  are  not  to  our  eyes 
less  so,  nor  less  lovely,  when  reflected  in  the 
bosom  of  a  still  lake  or  the  slumbering  ocean. 

This  statement  of  facts  destroys  at  once  all 
Dr.  Johnson's  splendid  sophistry — splendid  at 
first  sight — but  on  closer  inspection  a  mere 
naze,  mist,  or  smoke,  illuminated  by  an  artifi- 


cial lustre.  How  far  more  trulj',  and  how  far 
more  sublimely,  does  Milton,  "that  mighty  orb 
of  song,"  speak  of  his  own  divine  gift — the 
gift  of  Poetry  !  "  These  abilities  are  the  in- 
spired gift  of  God,  rarely  bestowed,  and  are  of 
power  to  inbreed  and  cherish  in  a  great  people 
the  seeds  of  virtue  and  public  civility;  to  allay 
the  perturbation  of  the  mind,  and  set  the  affec- 
tions to  a  right  tune;  to  celebrate  in  glorious 
and  lofty  hymns  the  throne  and  equipage  of 
God's  Almightiness,  and  what  he  suffers  to  be 
wrought  with  high  providence  in  his  Church; 
to  sing  victorious  agonies  of  Martyrs  and 
Saints,  the  deeds  and  triumphs  of  just  and 
pious  nations,  doing  valiantly  through  faith 
against  the  enemies  of  Christ;  to  deplore  the 
general  relapse  of  kingdoms  and  states  from 
virtue  and  God's  true  worship.  Lastly,  what- 
soever in  religion  is  holy  and  sublime,  and  in 
virtue  amiable  or  grave;  whatsoever  hath 
passion,  or  admiration  in  all  the  changes  of 
that  which  is  called  fortune  from  without,  or 
the  wily  subtleties  and  reflexions  of  men's 
thoughts  from  within  ;  all  these  things,  with  a 
solid  and  treatable  smoothness,  to  paint  out 
and  describe — Teaching  over  the  whole  book 
of  morality  and  virtue,  through  all  instances 
of  example,  with  such  delight  to  those,  espe- 
cially of  soft  and  delicious  temper,  who  will 
not  so  much  as  look  upon  Truth  herself  unless 
they  see  her  elegantly  dressed;  that,  whereas 
the  paths  of  honesty  and  good  life  that  appear 
now  rugged  and  difficult,  appear  to  all  men 
easy  and  pleasant,  though  they  were  rugged 
and  difficult  indeed." 

It  is  not  easy  to  believe  that  no  great  broad 
lights  have  been  thrown  on  the  mysteries  of 
men's  minds  since  the  days  of  the  great  poets, 
moralists,  and  metaphysicians  of  the  ancient 
world.  We  seem  to  feel  more  profoundly  than 
the}' — to  see,  as  it  were,  into  a  new  world. 
The  things  of  that  world  are  of  such  surpass- 
ing worth,  that  in  certain  awe-struck  moods 
we  regard  them  as  almost  above  the  province 
of  Poetry.  Since  the  revelation  of  Chris- 
tianity, all  moral  thought  has  been  sanctified 
by  Religion.  Religion  has  given  it  a  purity,  a 
solemnity,  a  sublimity,  which,  even  among  the 
noblest  of  the  heathen,  we  shall  look  for  in 
vain.  The  knowledge  that  shone  but  by  fits 
and  dimly  on  the  eyes  of  Socrates  and  Plato, 
"that  rolled  in  vain  to  find  the  light,"  has  de- 
scended over  many  lands  into  "  the  huts  where 
poor  men  lie" — and  thoughts  are  familiar  there, 
beneath  the  low  and  smoky  roofs,  higher  far 
than  ever  flowed  from  the  lips  of  Grecian  sage 
meditating  among  the  magnificence  of  his  pil- 
lared temples.  The  whole  condition  and  cha- 
racter of  the  Human  Being,  in  Christian 
countries,  has  been  raised  up  to  a  loftier  ele- 
vation ;  and  he  may  be  looked  at  in  the  face 
without  a  sense  of  degradation,  even  when  he 
wears  the  aspect  of  poverty  and  distress. 
Since  that  Religion  was  given  us,  and  not 
before,  has  been  felt  the  meaning  of  that  sub- 
lime expression — The  Brotherhood  of  Man. 

Yet  it  is  just  as  true,  that  there  is  as  much 
misery  and  suffering  in  Christendom — nay, 
far  more  of  them  all — than  troubled  and  tore 
men's  hearts  during  the  reign  of  all  those  su- 
perstitions and  idolatries.     But  with  what  dif- 


SACRED  POETRY. 


187 


ferent  feelings  is  it  all  thought  of — spoken  of —  \ 
looked  at — alleviated  —  repented — expiated — 
atoned  for — nowl  In  the  olden  time,  such 
■was  the  prostration  of  the  "million,"  that  it 
was  only  when  seen  in  high  places  that  even 
Guilt  and  Sin  were  felt  to  be  appalling; — Re- 
morse was  the  privilege  of  Kings  and  Princes 
—and  the  Furies  shook  their  scourges  but  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  the  high-born,  whose  crimes 
had  brought  eclipse  across  the  ancestral 
glories  of  some  ancient  line. 

But  we  now  know  that  there  is  but  one 
origin  from  which  flow  all  disastrous  issues, 
alike  to  the  king  and  the  beggar.  It  is  sin 
that  does  "  with  the  lofty  equalize  the  low ;" 
and  the  same  deep-felt  community  of  guilt  and 
groans  which  renders  Religion  awful,  has 
given  to  poetry  in  a  lower  degree  something 
of  the  same  character — has  made  it  far  more 
profoundly  tender,  more  overpoweringly  pa- 
thetic, more  humane  and  thoughtful  far,  more 
humble  as  well  as  more  high,  like  Christian 
Charity  more  comprehensive;  nay,  we  may 
say,  like  Chri^tian  Faith,  felt  by  those  to  whom 
it  is  given  to  be  from  on  high ;  and  if  not 
utterly  destroyed,  darkened  and  miserably 
weakened  by  a  wicked  or  vicious  life. 

We  may  alfirm,  then,  that  as  human  nature 
has  been  so  greatly  purified  and  elevated  by 
the  Christian  Religion,  Poetry,  which  deals  with 
human  nature  in  all  its  dearest  and  most  inti- 
mate concerns,  must  have  partaken  of  that 
purity  and  that  elevation — and  that  it  may 
now  be  a  far  holier  and  more  sacred  inspira- 
tion, than  when  it  was  fabled  to  be  the  gift  of 
Apollo  and  the  Muses.  We  may  not  circum- 
scribe its  sphere.  To  what  cerulean  heights 
shall  not  the  wing  of  Poetry  soarl  Into  what 
dungeon-gloom  shall  she  not  descend  ?  If  such 
be  her  powers  and  privileges,  shall  she  not  be 
the  servant  and  minister  of  Religion  1 

If  from  moral  fictions  of  life  Religion  be 
altogether  excluded,  then  it  would  indeed  be  a 
waste  of  words  to  show  that  they  must  be 
worse  than  worthless.  They  must  be,  not 
imperfect  merely,  but  false,  and  not  false 
merely,  but  calumnious  against  human  nature. 
The  agonies  of  passion  fling  men  down  to  the 
dust  on  their  knees,  or  smite  them  motionless 
as  stone  statues,  sitting  alone  in  their  darken- 
ed chambers  of  despair.  But  sooner  or  later, 
all  eyes,  all  hearts  look  for  comfort  to  God. 
The  coldest  metaphysical  analyst  could  not 
avoid  that,  in  his  sage  enumeration  of  "  each 
particular  hair"  that  is  twisted  and  untwisted 
by  him  into  a  sort  of  moral  tie  ;  and  surely  the 
impassioned  and  philosophical  poet  will  not, 
dare  not,  for  the  spirit  that  is  within  him,  ex- 
clude that  from  his  elegies,  his  hymns,  and  his 
songs,  which,  whether  mournful  or  exulting, 
are  inspired  by  the  life-long,  life-deep  convic- 
tion, that  all  the  greatness  of  the  present  is  but 
for  the  future — that  the  praises  of  this  passing 
earth  are  worthy  of  his  13're,  only  because  it  is 
overshadowed  by  the  eternal  heavens. 

But  though  the  total  exclusion  of  Religion 
from  Poetry  aspiring  to  be  a  picture  of  the  life 
or  soul  of  man,  be  manifestly  destructive  of 
its  very  essence — how,  it  may  be  asked,  shall 
we  set  bounds  to  this  spirit — how  shall  we 
limit  it — measure  it — and  accustom  it  to  the 


curb  of  critical  control?  If  Religion  be  indeed 
all-in-all,  and  there  are  few  who  openly  deny 
it,  must  we,  nevertheless,  deal  with  it  only  in 
illusion — hint  it  as  if  we  were  half  afraid  of  its 
spirit,  half  ashamed — and  cunningly  contrive 
to  save  our  credit  as  Christians,  without  sub- 
jecting ourselves  to  the  condemnation  of 
critics,  whose  scorn,  even  in  this  enlightened 
age,  has — the  more  is  the  pity — even  by  men 
conscious  of  their  genius  and  virtue,  been 
feared  as  more  fatal  than  death  1 

No :  let  there  be  no  compromise  between 
false  taste  and  true  Religion.  Better  to  be 
condemned  by  all  the  periodical  publications 
in  Great  Britain  than  your  own  conscience. 
Let  the  dunce,  with  diseased  spleen,  who  edits 
one  obscure  Review,  revile  and  rail  at  you  to 
his  heart's  discontent,  in  hollow  league  with 
his  black-biled  brother,  who,  sickened  by  your 
success,  has  long  laboured  in  vain  to  edit  an- 
other, still  more  unpublishable — but  do  you 
hold  the  even  tenor  of  your  way,  assured  that 
the  beauty  which  nature,  and  the  Lord  of  na- 
ture, have  revealed  to  your  eyes  and  your 
heart,  M-hen  sown  abroad  will  not  be  suffered 
to  perish,  but  will  have  everlasting  life.  Your 
books — humble  and  unpretending  though  they 
be — yet  here  and  there  a  page,  not  uninspired 
by  the  spirit  of  Truth,  and  Faith,  and  Hope, 
and  Charity — that  is,  by  Religion — will  be  held 
up  before  the  ingle  light,  close  to  the  eyes  of 
the  pious  patriarch,  sitting  with  his  children's 
children  round  his  knees — nor  will  any  one 
sentiment,  chastened  by  that  fire  that  tempers 
the  sacred  links  that  bind  together  the  brother- 
hood of  man,  escape  the  solemn  search  of  a 
soul,  simple  and  strong  in  its  Bible-taught 
wisdom,  and  happy  to  feel  and  own  commu- 
nion of  holy  thought  with  one  unknown — 
even  perhaps  by  name — who  although  dead 
yet  speaketh — and,  without  superstition,  is 
numbered  among  the  saints  of  that  lowly 
household. 

He  who  knows  that  he  writes  in  the  fear  of 
God  and  in  the  love  of  man,  will  not  arrest 
the  thoughts  that  flow  from  his  pen,  because 
he  knows  that  they  may— will  be— insulted 
and  profaned  by  the  name  of  cant,  and  he 
himself  held  up  as  a  hypocrite.  In  some 
hands,  ridicule  is  indeed  a  terrible  weapon.  Ii 
is  terrible  in  the  hands  of  indignant  genius, 
branding  the  audacious  forehead  of  falsehood 
or  pollution.  But  ridicule  in  the  hands  either 
of  cold-blooded  or  infuriated  Malice,  is  harm- 
less as  a  birch-rod  in  the  palsied  fingers  of  a 
superannuated  beldam,  who  in  her  blear-eyed 
dotage  has  lost  her  school.  The  Bird  of  Para- 
dise might  float  in  the  sunshine  unharmed  all 
its  beautiful  life  long,  although  all  the  sports- 
men of  Cockaigne  were  to  keep  firing  at  the 
star-like  plumage  during  the  Christmas  holy- 
days  of  a  thousand  years. 

We  never  are  disposed  not  to  enjoy  a  reli- 
gious spirit  in  metrical  composition,  but  when 
induced  to  suspect  that  it  is  not  sincere:  and 
then  we  turn  away  from  the  hypocrite,  just  as 
we  do  from  a  pious  pretender  in  the  intercourse 
of  life.  Shocking  it  is  indeed,  to  see  "  fools 
rush  in  where  angels  fear  to  Iread  ;"  nor  have 
we  words  to  express  our  disgust  and  horror  at 
the  sight  of  fools,  not  rushing  in  among  those 


188 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


awful  sanctities  before  which  angels  vail  their 
faces  with  their  wings,  but  mincing  in,  with 
red  slippers  and  flowered  dressing-gowns — 
would-be  fashionables,  with  crow-quills  in 
hands  like  those  of  milliners,  and  rings  on 
their  fingers — afterwards  extending  their  notes 
into  Sacred  Poems  for  the  use  of  the  public — 
penny-a-liners,  reporting  the  judgments  of  Pro- 
vidence as  they  would  the  proceedings  in  a 
police  court. 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  distinctive  character  of  poetry,  it  has 
been  said,  and  credited  almost  universally,  is 
to  please.  That  they  who  have  studied  the  laws 
of  thought  and  passion  should  have  suffered 
themselves  to  be  deluded  by  an  unmeaning 
word  is  mortifying  enough  ;  but  it  is  more  than 
mortifying — it  perplexes  and  confounds — to 
think  that  poets  themselves,  and  poets  too  of 
the  highest  order,  have  declared  the  same  de- 
grading belief  of  what  is  the  scope  and  tenden- 
cy, the  end  and  aim  of  their  own  divine  art — 
forsooth,  to  please!  Pleasure  is  no  more  the 
end  of  poetry  than  it  is  the  end  of  knowledge, 
or  of  virtue,  or  of  religion,  or  of  this  world. 
The  end  of  poetry  is  pleasure,  delight,  instruc- 
tion, expansion,  elevation,  honour,  glory,  hap- 
piness here  and  hereafter,  or  it  is  nothing.  Is 
the  end  of  Paradise  Lost  to  please]  Is  the 
end  of  Dante's  Divine  Comedy  to  please?  Is 
the  end  of  the  Psalms  of  David  to  please  1  Or 
of  the  songs  of  Isaiah  ?  Yet  it  is  probable  that 
poetry  has  often  been  injured  or  vitiated  by 
having  been  written  in  the  spirit  of  this  creed. 
It  relieved  poets  from  the  burden  of  their  duty 
— from  the  responsibility  of  their  endowments 
— from  the  conscience  that  is  in  genius.  We 
suspect  that  this  doctrine  has  borne  especially 
hardonall  sacred poelry.disinclined poets  tode- 
voting  their  genius  to  it — and  consigned,  if  not  to 
oblivion,  to  neglect,  much  of  what  is  great  in  that 
magnificent  walk.  For  ifthe  masters  of  the  Holy 
Harp  are  to  strike  it  but  to  please — if  their  high 
inspirations  are  to  be  deadened  and  dragged 
down  by  the  prevalent  power  of  such  a  mean 
and  unworthy  aim — they  will  eitherbe  contented 
to  awaken  a  few  touching  tones  of"  those  strains 
that  once  did  sweet  inZion  glide" — unwilling  to 
prcdong  and  deepen  them  into  the  diapason  of 
praise — or  they  will  deposit  their  lyre  within  the 
gloom  of  the  sanctuary,  and  leave  unawakened 
"  tlie  soul  of  music  sleeping  on  its  strings." 

All  arguments,  or  rather  objections  to  sacred 
poetry,  dissolve  as  you  internally  look  at  them, 
like  unabiding  mist-shapes,  or  rather  like  ima- 
gined mirage  where  no  mirage  is,  but  the  mind 
itself  makes  ocular  deceptions  for  its  own 
amusement.  By  sacred  poetrj',  is  mostly  meant 
Scriptural ;  but  there  are,  and  always  have 
been  conceited  and  callous  critics,  who  would 
exclude  all  religious  feelings  from  poetry,  and 
indeed  from  prose  too,  compendiously  calling 
them  all  cant.  Had  such  criticasters  been 
right,  all  great  nations  would  not  have  so 
gloried  in  their  great  bards.  Poetry,  it  is  clear, 
embraces  all  we  can  experience;  and  every 
high,  impassioned,  imaginative,  intellectual, 
and  moral  state  of  being  becomes  religious 


before  it  passes  away,  provided  it  be  left  free 
to  seek  the  empyrean,  and  not  adstricted  to  the 
glebe  by  some  severe  slavery  of  condition, 
which  destroys  the  desire  of  ascent  by  the  same 
inexorable  laws  that  palsy  the  power,  and  re- 
concile the  toilers  to  the  doom  of  the  dust.  If 
all  the  states  of  being  that  poetry  illustrates 
do  thus  tend,  of  their  own  accord,  towards  re- 
ligious elevation,  all  high  poetry  must  be  re- 
ligious; and  so  it  is,  for  its  whole  language  is 
breathing  of  a  life  "  above  the  smoke  and  stir 
of  this  dim  spot  which  men  call  earth;"  and 
the  feelings,  impulses,  motives,  aspirations, 
obligations,  duties,  privileges,  which  it  sha- 
dows forth  or  imbodies,  enveloping  them  in 
solemn  shade  or  attractive  light,  are  all,  di- 
rectly or  indirectly,  manifestly  or  secretly, 
allied  with  the  sense  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  and  the  belief  of  a  future  state  of  reward 
and  retribution.  Extinguish  that  sense  and 
that  belief  in  a  poet's  soul,  and  he  may  hang 
up  his  harp. 

Among  the  great  living  poets  Wordsworth 
is  the  one  whose  poetry  is  to  us  the  most  inex- 
plicable— with  all  our  reverence  for  his  trans- 
cendent genius,  we  do  not  fear  to  say  the  most 
open  to  the  most  serious  charges — on  the  score 
of  its  religion.  From  the  first  line  of  the  Lyrical 
Ballads  to  the  last  of  the  "Excursion" — it  is 
avowedly  one  system  of  thought  and  feeling, 
embracing  his  experiences  of  human  life,  and 
his  meditations  on  the  moral  government  of 
this  world.  The  human  heart — the  human 
mind — the  human  soul — to  use  his  own  fine 
words — is  "  the  haunt  and  main  region  of  his 
sone:."  There  are  few,  perhaps  none  of  our 
afltctions — using  that  term  in  its  largest  sense 
— which  have  not  been  either  slightly  touched 
upon,  or  fully  treated,  by  Wordsworth.  In  his 
poetry,  therefore,  we  behold  an  image  of  what, 
to  his  eye,  appears  to  be  human  life.  Is  there, 
or  is  there  not,  some  great  and  lamentable  de- 
fect in  that  image,  marring  both  the  truth  and 
beauty  of  the  representation  ?  We  think  there 
is — and  that  it  lies  in  his  Religion. 

In  none  of  Wordsworth's  poetry,  previous  to 
his  "Excursion,"  is  there  any  allusion  made, 
except  of  the  most  trivial  and  transient  kind, 
to  Revealed  Religion.  He  certainly  cannot  be 
called  a  Christian  poet.  The  hopes  that  lie 
beyond  the  grave — and  the  many  holy  and 
awful  feelings  in  which  on  earth  these  hopes 
I  are  enshrined  and  fed,  are  rarely  if  ever  part 
of  the  character  of  any  of  the  persons — male 
or  female — old  or  young — brought  before  us 
in  his  beautiful  Pastorals.  Yet  all  the  most 
interesting  and  affecting  ongoings  of  this  life 
1  are  exquisitely  delineated — and  innumerable 
of  course  are  the  occasions  on  which,  had  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  revealed  religion  been 
'  in  Wordsworth's  heart  during  the  hours  of  in- 
spiration— and  he  often  has  written  like  a 
man  inspired — they  must  have  found  expres- 
sion in  his  strains;  and  the  personages,  hum- 
ble or  high,  that  figure  in  his  representations, 
would  have  been,  in  their  joys  or  their  sorrows, 
their  temptations  and  their  trials.  Christians. 
But  most  assuredly  this  is  not  the  case;  the 
religion  of  this  great  Poet — in  all  his  poetry 
published  previous  to  the  "Excursion" — is  but 
the  "  Religion  of  the  Woods." 


SACRED  POETRY. 


189 


In  the  "  Excursion,"  his  religion  is  brought 
forward — prominently  and  conspicuously — in 
many  elaborate  dialogues  between  Priest,  Ped- 
lar, Poet,  and  Solitary.  And  a  very  high  re- 
ligion it  often  is;  but  is  it  Christianity  ?  No 
— it  is  not.  There  are  glimpses  given  of  some 
of  the  Christian  doctrines;  just  as  if  the  va- 
rious philosophical  disquisitions,  in  which  the 
Poem  abounds,  would  be  imperfect  without 
some  allusion  to  the  Christian  creed.  The  in- 
terlocutors— eloquent  as  they  all  are — say  but 
little  on  that  theme;  nor  do  they  show — if  we 
except  the  Priest — much  interest  in  it — any 
solicitude ;  they  may  all,  for  any  thing  that 
appears  to  the  contrary,  be  deists. 

Now,  perhaps,  it  may  be  said  that  Words- 
worth was  deterred  from  entering  on  such  a 
theme  by  the  awe  of  his  spirit.  But  there  is 
no  appearance  of  this  having  been  the  case  in 
any  one  single  passage  in  the  whole  potm.  Nor 
could  it  have  been  the  case  with  such  a  man 
— a  man  privileged,  by  the  power  God  has  be- 
stowed upon  him,  to  speak  unto  all  the  nations 
of  the  earfh,  on  all  themes,  however  high  and 
holy,  which  the  children  of  men  can  feel  and 
understand.  Christianity,  during  almost  .all 
their  disquisitions,  lay  in  the  way  of  all  the 
speakers,  as  they  kept  journeying  among  the 
hills. 

"On  man,  on  nature,  and  on  human  life, 
Musing  in  Solitude !" 

But  thtfy,  one  and  all,  either  did  not  perceive 
it,  or,  perceiving  it,  looked  upon  it  with  a  cold 
and  indifferent  regard,  and  passed  by  into  the, 
poetry  breathing  from  the  dewy  woods,  or 
lowering  from  the  cloudy  skies.  Their  talk  is 
of"  Palmyra  central,  in  the  desert,"  rather  than 
of  Jerusalem.  On  the  mythology  of  the  Hea- 
then much  beautiful  poetry  is  bestowed,  but 
none  on  the  theology  of  the  Christian. 

Yet  there  is  no  subject  too  high  for  Words- 
worth's muse.  In  the  preface  to  the  "  Excur- 
sion," he  says  daringly — we  fear  too  dar- 
ingly,— 

"  Urania,  I  sliall  need 
Thy  guidance,  or  a  greater  muse,  if  such 
Descend  to  earth,  or  dwell  in  hiyhest  heaven  ! 
For  I  must  tread  on  shadowy  ground,  must  sink 
Deep — and  aloft  ascending,  breathe  in  worlds 
To  which  the  heaven  of  heavens  is  but  a  veil, 
All  strength — all  terror — single  or  in  bands. 
That  ever  was  put  forth  in  personal  form, 
Jehovah  with  his  thunder,  «nd  the  choir 
Of  shouting  angels,  and  the  empyreal  thrones; 
I  pass  them  unalarm'd  '." 

Has  the  poet,  who  believes  himself  entitled 
to  speak  thus  of  the  power  and  province  given 
to  him  to  put  forth  and  to  possess,  spoken  in 
consonance  with  such  a  strain,  by  avoiding, 
in  part  of  the  very  work  to  which  he  so  tri- 
umphantly appeals,  the  Christian  Revelation] 
Nothing  could  have  reconciled  us  to  a  burst 
of  such — audacity — we  use  the  word  consider- 
atel}' — but  the  exhibition  of  a  spirit  divinely 
embued  with  the  Christian  faith.  For  what 
else,  we  ask,  but  the  truths  beheld  by  the 
Christian  Faith,  can  be  beyond  those  "person- 
al forms,"  "  beyond  Jehovah,"  "  the  choirs  of 
shouting  angels,"  and  the  "  empyreal  thrones  ]" 

This  omission  is  felt  the  more  deeply — 
the  more  sadl}' — from  such  introduction  as 
there  is  of  Christianity;  for  one  of  the  books 
of  the  "  Excursion"  begins  with  a  very  long, 


and  a  very  noble  eulogy  on  the  Church  Esta- 
blishment in  England.  How  happened  it  that 
he  who  pronounced  such  eloquent  panegyric 
— that  they  who  so  devoutly  inclined  their  ear 
to  imbibe  it — should  have  been  all  contented 
with 

"That  basis  laid,  these  principles  of  faith 
Announced," 

and  3'et  throughout  the  whole  course  of  their 

discussions,  before   and  after,  have  forgotten 

apparently  that  there  Avas  either  Christianity 

or  a  Christian  Church  in  the  world  ? 

We  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  the  thought- 
ful and  sincere  student  of  this  great  poet's 
works,  must  regard  such  omission — such  in- 
consistency or  contradiction — with  more  than 
the  pain  of  regret ;  for  there  is  no  relief 
afforded  to  our  defrauded  hearts  from  any 
quarter  to  which  we  can  look.  A  pledge  has 
been  given,  that  all  the  powers  and  privileges 
of  a  Christian  poet  shall  be  put  forth  and  ex- 
ercised for  our  behoof — for  our  delight  and 
instruction;  all  other  poetry  is  to  sink  away 
before  the  heavenly  splendour;  Urania,  or  a 
greater  muse,  is  invoked;  and  after  all  this 
solemn,  and  more  than  solemn  preparation 
made  for  our  initiation  into  the  mysteries,  we 
are  put  off  with  a  well-merited  encomium  on 
the  Church  of  England,  from  Bishop  to  Curate 
inclusive ;  and  though  we  have  much  fine 
poetry,  and  some  high  philosophy,  it  would 
puzzle  the  most  ingenious  to  detect  much,  or 
any,  ChriNtian  religion. 

Should  the  opinion  boldly  avowed  be  chal- 
lenged, we  shall  enter  into  further  exposition 
and  illustration  of  it;  meanwhile,  we  confine 
ourselves  to  some  remarks  on  one  of  the  most 
elaborate  tales  of  domestic  suffering  in  the 
Excursion.  In  the  story  of  Margaret,  contain- 
ing, we  believe,  more  than  four  hundred  lines 
— a  tolerably  long  poem  in  itself — though  the 
whole  and  entire  state  of  a  poor  deserted  wife 
and  mother's  heart,  for  year  after  year  of 
"hope  deferred,  that  maketh  the  heartsick,'* 
is  described,  or  rather  dissected,  with  an  almost 
cruel  anatomy — not  one  quivering  fibre  being 
left  unexposed — all  the  fluctuating,  and  finally 
all  the  constant  agitations  laid  bare  and  naked 
that  carried  her  at  last  lingeringly  to  the  grave 
— there  is  not — except  one  or  two  weak  lines, 
that  seem  to  have  been  afterwards  purposely 
dropped  in — one  single  syllable  about  Re- 
ligion. Was  Margaret  a  Christian  1 — Let  the 
answer  be  yes — as  good  a  Christian  as  ever 
kneeled  in  the  small  mountain  chapel,  in 
whose  churchyard  her  body  now  waits  for  the 
resurrection.  If  she  was — then  the  picture 
painted  of  her  and  her  agonies,  is  a  libel  not 
onlv  on  her  character,  but  on  the  character  of 
all  other  poor  Christian  women  in  this  Chris- 
tian land.  Placed  as  she  was,  for  so  many 
years,  in  the  clutches  of  so  many  passions — 
she  surely  must  have  turned  sometimes — ay, 
often,  and  often,  and  often,  else  had  she  sooner 
left  the  clay — towards  her  Lord  and  Saviour. 
But  of  such  "comfort  let  no  man  speak," 
seems  to  have  been  the  principle  of  Mr.  Words- 
worth ;  and  the  consequence  is,  that  this,  per- 
haps the  most  elaborate  picture  he  ever  painted 
of  any  conflict  within  any  one  human  heart,  is, 
with  all  its  pathos,  repulsive  to  very  religious 


190 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


mind — that  being  wanting  without  which  the 
entire  representation  is  vitiated,  and  necessari- 
ly false  to  nature — to  virtue — to  resignation 
— to  life — and  to  death.  These  may  seem  strong 
words — but  we  are  ready  to  defend  them  in  the 
face  of  all  who  may  venture  to  impugn  their 
truth. 

This  utter  absence  of  Revealed  Religion, 
where  it  ought  to  have  been  all-in-all — for  in 
such  trials  in  real  life  it  is  all-in-all,  or  we 
regard  the  existence  of  sin  or  sorrow  with  re- 
pugnance— shocks  far  deeper  feelings  within 
us  than  those  of  taste,  and  throws  over  the 
whole  poem  to  which  the  tale  of  Margaret  be- 
longs, an  unhappy  suspicion  of  hollowness  and 
insincerity  in  that  poetical  religion,  which  at 
the  best  is  a  sorry  substitute  indeed  for  the 
light  that  is  from  heaven.  Above  all,  it  flings, 
as  indeed  we  have  intimated,  an  air  of  absurdity 
over  the  orthodox  Church-of-Englandism — for 
once  to  quote  a  not  inexpressive  barbarism  of 
Bentham — which  every  now  and  then  breaks 
out  either  in  passing  compliment — amounting 
to  but  a  bow — or  in  eloquent  laudation,  during 
which  the  poet  appears  to  be  prostrate  on  his 
knees.  He  speaks  nobly  of  cathedrals,  and 
minsters,  and  so  forth,  reverendly  adorning  all 
the  land;  but  in  none — no,  not  one  of  the 
houses  of  the  humble,  the  hovels  of  the  poor 
into  which  he  takes  us — is  the  religion  preached 
in  those  cathedrals  and  minsters,  and  chanted 
in  prayer  to  the  pealing  organ,  represented  as 
the  power  that  in  peace  supports  the  roof-tree, 
lightens  the  hearth,  and  is  the  guardian,  the 
tutelary  spirit  of  the  lowly  dwelling.  Can  this 
be  right]  Impossible.  And  when  we  find  the 
Christian  religion  thus  excluded  from  Poetry, 
otherwise  as  good  as  ever  was  produced  by 
human  genius,  what  are  we  to  think  of  the 
Poet,  and  of  the  world  of  thought  and  feeling, 
fancy  and  imagination,  in  which  he  breathes, 
nor  fears  to  declare  to  all  men  that  he  believes 
himself  to  be  one  of  the  order  of  the  High 
Priests  of  nature  ? 

Shall  it  be  said,  in  justification  of  the  poet, 
that  he  presents  a  very  interesting  state  of 
mind,  sometimes  found  actually  existing,  and 
does  not  pretend  to  present  a  model  of  virtue  ? — 
that  there  are  miseries  which  shut  some  hearts 
against  religion,  sensibilities  which,  being  too 
severely  tried,  are  disinclined,  at  least  at  cer- 
tain stages  of  their  suffering,  to  look  to  that 
source  for  comfort? — that  this  is  human  nature, 
and  the  description  only  follows  it  ? — that  when 
"  in  peace  and  comfort"  her  best  hopes  were 
directed  to  "the  God  in  heaven,"  and  that  her 
habit  in  that  respect  was  only  broken  up  by  the 
stroke  of  her  calamity,  causing  such  a  derange- 
ment of  her  mental  power  as  should  deeply  in- 
terest the  sympathies? — in  short,  that  the  poet 
is  an  artist,  and  that  the  privation  of  all  com- 
fort from  religion  completes  the  picture  of  her 
desolation  ? 

Would  that  such  defence  were  of  avail ! 
But  of  whom  does  the  poet  so  pathetically 
BPeak 1 

"  of  one  whose  stock 
Of  virtues  bidom'd  licnentti  this  lowly  roof. 
She  was  a  woman  of  a  steady  mind. 
Tender  and  deep  in  her  excess  of  love  ; 
Not  speaking  much— pleased  rather  with  the  joy 
or  her  own  thoughts     By  some  especial  care 


Her  temper  had  been  framed,  as  if  to  make 

A  Being  who,  by  addins  love  to  fear. 

Might  live  on  earth  a  life  of  happiness. 

Her  wedded  partner  lack'd  not  on  his  side 

The  humble  worth  that  satisfied  her  heart — 

Frugal,  affectionate,  sober,  <lnd  withal 

Keenly  itidustrious.     She  with  pride  would  tell 

That  lie  was  often  seated  at  his  loom 

In  summer,  ere  the  mower  was  abroad 

Among  the  dewy  crass— in  early  spring. 

Ere  the  last  star  had  vanish'd.    They  who  pass'd 

At  evening,  from  behind  the  garden  "fence 

Might  hear  his  busy  spade,  which  he  would  ply 

After  his  daily  work,  until  the  light 

Had  fail'd,  and  every  leaf  and  flower  were  lost 

In  the  darls  hedges.  '  So  their  days  were  spent 

In  peace  and  comfort;  and  a  pretty  boy 

Was  their  best  hope,  next  to  the  God  in  heaven." 

We  are  prepared  by  that  character,  so  amply 
and  beautifully  drawn,  to  pity  her  to  the  ut- 
most demand  that  may  be  made  on  our  pity — 
to  judge  her  leniently,  even  if  in  her  desertion 
she  finally  give  way  to  inordinate  and  incura- 
ble grief.  But  we  are  not  prepared  to  see  her 
sinking  from  depth  to  depth  of  despair,  in  wil- 
ful abandonment  to  her  anguish,  without  oft- 
repeated  and  long-continued  passionate  prayers 
for  support  or  deliverance  from  her  trouble,  to 
the  throne  of  mercy.  Alas!  it  is  true  that  in 
our  happiness  our  gratitude  to  God  is  too  often 
more  selfish  than  we  think,  and  that  in  our 
misery  it  faints  or  dies.  So  is  it  even  with  the 
best  of  us — but  surely  not  all  life  long — unless 
the  heart  has  been  utterly  crushed — the  brain 
itself  distorted  in  its  functions,  by  some  ca- 
lamity, under  which  nature's  self  gives  way, 
and  falls  into  ruins  like  a  rent  house  when  the 
last  prop  is  withdrawn. 

"  Nine  tedious  years 
From  their  firnt  separation- nine  long  years 
She  liniier'd  in  umiuict  widowhood — 
A  wife  and  widnw.     Needs  must  it  have  been 
A  sore  heart-wasting." 

It  must  indeed,  and  it  is  depicted  by  a  mas- 
ter's hand.  But  even  were  it  granted  that  suf- 
ferings, such  as  hers,  might,  in  the  course  of 
nature,  have  extinguished  all  heavenly  com- 
fort— all  reliance  on  God  and  her  Saviour — the 
process  and  progress  of  such  fatal  relinquish- 
ment should  have  been  shown,  with  all  its 
struggles  and  all  its  agonies;  if  the  religion  of 
one  so  good  was  so  unavailing,  its  weakness 
should  have  been  exhibited  and  explained,  that 
we  might  have  known  assuredly  why,  in  the 
multitude  of  the  thoughts  within  her,  there  was 
no  solace  for  her  sorrow,  and  how  unpitying 
Heaven  let  her  die  of  grief. 

This  tale,  too,  is  the  very  first  told  by  the 
Pedlar  to  the  Poet,  under  circumstances  of 
much  solemnity,  and  with  affecting  note  of 
preparation.  It  arises  naturally  from  the  sight 
of  the  ruined  cottage  near  which  they,  by  ap- 
pointment, have  met;  the  narrator  puts  his 
whole  heart  into  it,  and  the  listener  is  over- 
come by  its  pathos.  No  remark  is  made  on 
Margaret's  grief,  except  that 

"I  turned  aside  in  weakness,  nor  had  power 
To  thank  him  for  the  tale  which  he  had  told. 
I  stood,  and  leaning  o'er  the  garden  wall, 
Review'd  that  woman's  sufferings;  and  it  scem'd 
To  comfort  me.  white,  with  a  brother's  love, 
1  bless'd  her  in  the  impotence  of  grief 
Then  towards  the  cottage  1  return'd,  and  traced 
Fondly,  though  with  an  Interest  more  mild. 
The  secret  spirit  of  humanity, 
Which,  'mid  the  calm,  oblivious  tendencies 
Of  nature— 'mid  her  plants,  and  weeds,  and  flow«ri^ 
And  silent  overgrowing?,  still  unrevived." 


SACRED  POETRY. 


191 


Such  musings  receive  the  Pedlar's  approba- 
tion, and  he  says — 

"My  friend!  enoiieh  to  sorrow  you  liave  given. 
The  purposes  of  wisdom  ask  no  more. 
Be  wise  and  cheerful,  and  no  longer  read 
Tlie  forms  of  ihinis  with  an  unworthy  eye. 
She  sleeps  in  the  calm  earth,  and  peace  is  here." 

As  the  Poet,  then,  was  entirely  satisfied  with 
the  tale,  so  ought  to  be  all  readers.  No  hint 
is  dropped  that  there  was  any  thing  to  blame 
in  the  poor  woman's  nine  years'  passion — no 
regret  breathed  that  she  had  sought  not,  by 
means  offered  to  all,  for  that  peace  of  mind 
which  passeth  all  understanding — no  question 
asked,  how  it  was  that  she  had  not  communed 
with  her  own  afflicted  heart,  over  the  pages  of 
that  Book  where  it  is  written,  "  Come  unto  me 
all  ye  that  are  weary  and  heavy  laden,  and  I 
will  give  ye  rest!"  The  narrator  had  indeed 
said,  that  on  revisiting  her  during  her  afflic- 
tion— 

"  Her  humble  lot  of  books, 
Which  in  her  cottage  window,  heretofore. 
Had  been  piled  up  against  the  corner  panes 
In  seemly  order,  now,  with  straggling  leaves. 
Lay  scatter'd  hero  and  there,  open  or  shut. 
As  they  had  chanced  to  fall." 

But  he  does  not  mention  the  Bible. 

What  follows  has  always  seemed  to  us  of  a 

questionable  character— 
"I  well  remember  that  those  very  plumes. 
Those  weeds,  and  the  hich  spear-crass  on  that  wall, 
Uy  mist  and  silent  rain-drops  silver'd  o'er, 
As  once  I  pass'd,  into  my  heart  convey'd 
So  still  an  image  of  tranquillity. 
So  calm  and  still,  and  look'd  so  beautiful 
Amid  the  uneasy  thoughts  which  (ill'd  my  mind. 
That  what  we  feel  nf  sorrow  and  despair 
From  ruin  and  from  ehan/xe,  and  all  the  ffriefs 
The  passing  shows  of  Being  leave  behind, 
Appcar'd  an  idle  dream,  that  could  not  live 
Where  meditation  was.     I  turn'd  away. 
And  walk'd  along  my  road  in  happiness." 

These  are  fine  lines;  nor  shall  we  dare,  in 
face  of  them,  to  deny  the  power  of  the  beauty 
and  serenity  of  nature  to  assuage  the  sorrow 
of  us  mortal  beings,  who  live  for  awhile  on 
her  breast.  Assuredly,  there  is  sorrow  that 
may  be  so  assuaged ;  and  the  sorrow  here 
spoken  of — for  poor  Margaret,  many  years 
dead — was  of  that  kind.  But  does  not  the 
heart  of  a  man  beat  painfully,  as  if  violence 
were  offered  to  its  most  sacred  memories,  to 
hear  from  the  lips  of  wisdom,  that  "  sorrow 
and  despair  from  ruin  and  from  change,  and 
all  the  griefs"  that  we  can  suffer  here  below, 
appear  an  idle  dream  among  plumes,  and 
weeds,  and  speargrass,  and  mists,  and  rain- 
drops 1  "Where  meditation  is!"  What  me- 
ditation ■?  Turn  thou,  0  child  of  a  day !  to  the 
New  Testament,  and  therein  thou  mayesl  find 
comfort.  It  matters  not  whether  a  spring- 
bank  be  thy  seat  by  Rydal  Mere,  "  while  hea- 
ven and  earth  do  make  one  imagery,"  or  thou 
sittest  in  the  shadow  of  death,  beside  a  tomb. 

We  said,  that  for  the  present  we  should  con- 
fine our  remarks  on  this  subject  to  the  story 
of  Margaret ;  but  they  are,  more  or  less,  appli- 
cable to  almost  all  the  stories  in  the  Excur- 
sion. In  many  of  the  eloquent  disquisitions 
and  harangues  of  the  Three  Friends,  they 
carry  along  with  them  the  sympathies  of  all 
mankind;  and  the  wisest  maybe  enlightened 
by  their  wisdom.  But  what  we  complain  of 
is,  that  neither  in  joy  nor  grief,  happiness  nor 


misery,  is  religion  the  dominant  principle  of 
thought  and  feeling  in  the  character  of  any 
one  human  being  with  whom  we  are  made 
acquainted,  living  or  dead.  Of  not  a  single 
one,  man  or  woman,  are  we  made  to  feel  the 
beauty  of  holiness — the  power  and  the  glory 
of  the  Christian  Faith.  Beings  are  brought 
before  us  whom  we  pity,  respect,  admire,  love. 
The  great  poet  is  high-souled  and  tender- 
hearted— his  song  is  pure  as  the  morning, 
bright  as  day,  solemn  as  night.  But  his  inspi- 
ration is  not  drawn  from  the  Book  of  God,  but 
from  the  Book  of  Nature.  Therefore  it  fails 
to  sustain  his  genius  when  venturing  into  the 
depths  of  tribulation  and  anguish.  There- 
fore imperfect  are  his  most  truthful  delinea- 
tions of  sins  and  sorrows;  and  not  in  his 
philosophy,  lofty  though  it  be,  can  be  found 
alleviation  or  cure  of  the  maladies  that  kill  the 
soul.  Therefore  never  will  the  Excursion  be- 
come a  bosom-book,  endeared  to  all  ranks  and 
conditions  of  a  Christian  People,  like  "The 
Task"  or  the  "  Night  Thoughts."  Their  reli- 
gion is  that  of  revelation — it  acknowledges 
no  other  source  but  the  word  of  God.  To  that 
word,  in  all  difficulty,  distress,  and  dismay, 
these  poets  appeal ;  and  though  they  may 
sometimes,  or  often,  misinterpret  its  judg- 
ment, that  is  an  evil  incident  to  finite  intelli- 
gence; and  the  very  consciousness  that  it  is 
so,  inspires  a  perpetual  humility  that  is  itself 
a  virtue  found  to  accompany  only  a  Christian's 
Faith. 

We  have  elsewhere  vindicated  the  choice 
of  a  person  of  low  degree  as  Chief  of  the 
"  Excursion,"  and  exult  to  think  that  a  great 
poet  should  have  delivered  his  highest  doc 
trines  through  the  lips  of  a  Scottish  Pedlar. 

"Early  had  he  learn'd 
To  reverence  the  volume  that  displays 
The  mystery  of  life  that  cannot  die." 

Throughout  the  poem  he  .shows  that  he  doei 
reverence  it,  and  that  his  whole  being  has 
been  purified  and  elevated  by  its  spirit.  But 
fond  as  he  is  of  preaching,  and  excellent  in 
the  art  or  gift,  a  Christian  Preacher  he  is  not — 
at  best  a  philosophical  divine.  Familiar  by 
his  parentage  and  nurture  with  all  most  hal- 
lowed round  the  poor  man's  hearth,  and 
guarded  by  his  noble  nature  from  all  offence 
to  the  sanctities  there  enshrined  ;  yet  the  truth 
must  be  told,  he  speaks  not,  he  expounds  not 
the  Word  as  the  servant  of  the  Lord,  as  the 
follower  of  Him  Crucified.  There  is  very 
much  in  his  announcements  to  his  equals  wide 
of  the  mark  set  up  in  the  New  Testament.  We 
seem  to  hear  rather  of  a  divine  power  and 
harmony  in  the  universe  than  of  the  Living 
God.  The  spirit  of  Christianity  as  connected 
with  the  Incarnation  of  the  Deity,  the  Human- 
God,  the  link  between  heaven  and  earth,  be- 
tween helplessness  and  omnipotence,  ought  to 
be  everywhere  visible  in  the  religious  effu- 
sions of  a  Christian  Poet — wonder  and  awe 
for  the  greatness  of  God,  gratitude  and  love 
for  his  goodness,  humility  and  self-abasement 
for  his  own  unworthiness.  Passages  may  per- 
haps be  found  in  the  "Excursion"  expressive 
of  that  spirit,  but  they  are  few  and  faint,  and 
somewhat  professional,  falling  not  from  the 
Pedlar  but  from  the  Pastor.    If  the  mind,  in 


192 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


forming  its  conceptions  of  divine  things,  is 
prouder  of  its  own  power  than  humbled  in  the 
comparison  of  its  personal  inferiority;  and  in 
enunciating  them  in  verse,  more  rejoices  in 
the  consciousness  of  the  power  of  its  own  ge- 
nius than  in  the  contemplation  of  Him  from 
whom  Cometh  every  good  and  perfect  gift — it 
has  not  attained  Piety,  and  its  worship  is  not 
an  acceptable  service.  For  it  is  self-worship 
— worship  of  the  creature's  own  conceptions, 
and  an  overweening  complacency  with  its 
own  greatness,  in  being  able  to  form  and  so  to 
express  them  as  to  win  or  command  the  praise 
and  adoration  of  his  fellow  mortals.  Those 
lofty  speculations,  alternately  declaimed  among 
the  mountains,  with  an  accompaniment  of 
waterfalls,  by  men  full  of  fancies  and  eloquent 
of  speech,  elude  the  hold  of  the  earnest  spirit 
longing  for  truth ;  disappointment  and  impa- 
tience grow  on  the  humblest  and  most  reverent 
mind,  and  escaping  from  the  multitude  of  vain 
words,  the  neophyte  finds  in  one  chapter  of  a 
Book  forgotten  in  that  babblement,  a  light  to 
his  way  and  a  support  to  his  sleps,  which,  fol- 
lowing and  trusting,  he  knows  will  lead  him 
to  everlasting  life. 

Throughout  the  poem  there  is  much  talk  of 
the  light  of  nature,  little  of  the  light  of  reve- 
lation, and  they  all  speak  of  the  theological 
doctrines  of  which  our  human  reason  gives  us 
assurance.  Such  expressions  as  these  may 
easily  lead  to  important  error,  and  do,  indeed, 
seem  often  to  have  been  misconceived  and 
misemployed.  What  those  truths  are  which 
human  reason,  unassisted,  would  discover  to 
us  on  these  subjects,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to 
know,  for  we  have  never  seen  it  left  absolutely 
to  itself.  Instruction,  more  or  less,  in  wander- 
ing tradition,  or  in  express,  full,  and  recorded 
revelation,  has  always  accompanied  it ;  and  we 
have  never  had  other  experience  of  the  human 
mind  than  as  exerting  its  powers  under  the 
light  of  imparted  knowledge.  In  these  circum- 
stances, all  that  can  be  properly  meant  by 
those  expressions  which  regard  the  power  of 
the  human  mind  to  guide,  to  enlighten,  or  to 
satisfy  itself  in  such  great  inquiries,  is  not 
that  it  can  be  the  discoverer  of  truth,  but  that, 
with  the  doctrines  of  truth  set  before  it,  it  is 
able  to  deduce  arguments  from  its  own  inde- 
pendent sources  which  confirm  it  in  their 
belief;  or  that,  with  truth  and  error  proposed 
to  its  choice,  it  has  means,  to  a  certain  extent, 
in  its  own  power,  of  distinguishing  one  from 
the  other.  For  ourselves,  we  may  understand 
easily  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  us  so  to 
shut  out  from  our  minds  the  knowledge  which 
has  been  poured  in  upon  them  from  our  earliest 
years,  in  order  to  ascertain  what  self-left  rea- 
son could  find  out.  Yet  this  much  we  are  able 
to  do  in  the  speculations  of  our  philosophy-. 
We  can  inquire,  in  this  light,  what  are  the 
grounds  of  evidence  which  nature  and  reason 
themselves  offer  for  belief  in  the  same  truths. 
A  like  remark  must  be  extended  to  the  mo- 
rality which  we  seem  now  to  inculcate  from 
the  authority  of  human  reason.  We  no  longer 
possess  any  such  independent  moralitv.  The 
spirit  of  a  higher,  purer,  moral  law  than  man 
could  discover,  has  been  breathed  over  the 
world,  and  we  have  grown  up  in  the  air  and 


the  li^ht  of  a  system  so  congenial  to  the  highest 
feelings  of  our  human  nature,  that  the  wisest 
spirits  amongst  us  have  sometimes  been 
tempted  to  forget  that  its  origin  is  divine. 

Had  the  Excursion  been  written  in  the  poet's 
later  life,  it  had  not  been  so  liable  to  such  ob- 
jections as  these;  for  much  of  his  poetry  com- 
posed since  that  era  is  imbued  with  a  religious 
spirit,  answering  the  soul's  desire  of  the  de- 
voutest  Christian.  His  Ecclesiastical  Sonnets 
are  sacred  poetry  indeed.  How  comprehen- 
sive the  sympathy  of  a  truly  pious  heart! 
How  religion  reconciles  different  forms,  and 
modes,  and  signs,  and  symbols  of  worship, 
provided  only  they  are  all  imbued  with  the 
spirit  of  faith!  This  is  the  toleration  Chris- 
tianity sanctions — for  it  is  inspired  by  its  own 
universal  love.  No  sectarian  feeling  here, 
that  would  exclude  or  debar  from  the  holiest 
chamber  in  the  poet's  bosom  one  sincere 
worshipper  of  our  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 
Christian  brethren!  By  that  mysterious  bond 
our  natures  are  brought  into  more  endearing 
communion — now  more  than  ever,  brethren, 
because  of  the  blood  that  was  shed  for  us  all 
from  His  blessed  side!  Even  of  that  most 
awful  myster)'  in  some  prayer-like  strains  the 
Poet  tremblingly  speaks,  in  many  a  strain,  at 
once  so  affecting  and  so  elevating — breathing 
so  divinely  of  Christian  charity  to  all  whose 
trust  is  in  the  Cross!  Who  shall  say  what 
form  of  worship  is  most  acceptable  to  the 
•Mmighty?  All  are  holy  in  which  the  soul 
seeks  to  approach  him — holy 

"The  rtiaprl  liirkine  amonp  trepB, 
Whorp  a  few  vllluccrs  on  bended  knees 
Find  solace  which  .1  busy  world  disdains;" 

we  feel  as  the  poet  felt  when  he  breathed  to  the 
image  of  some  old  abbey — 

"  Once  ye  were  holy,  ye  are  holy  still :" 
.\nd  what  heart  partakes  not  the  awe  of  his 

"  Ucneath  that  branching  roof 
Si>lf-pnlspd.  and  scoop'd  into  ten  thousand  cells 
\\  here  lipht  and  shade  repose,  where  music  dwells 
Lingering— and  wandering  on  as  loth  to  die  1" 

Read  the  first  of  these  sonnets  with  the  last — 
and  then  once  more  the  strains  that  come  be- 
tween— and  you  will  be  made  to  feel  how  va- 
rious and  how  vast  beneath  the  sky  are  the 
regions  set  apart  by  the  soul  for  prayer  and 
worship;  and  that  all  places  become  conse- 
crated— the  high  and  the  humble — the  mean 
and  the  magnificent — in  which  Faith  and  Piety 
have  sought  to  hold  communion  with  Heaven. 
But  they  who  duly  worship  God  in  temples 
made  with  hands,  meet  every  hour  of  their 
lives  "Devotional  Excitements"  as  they  walk 
among  his  works;  and  in  the  later  poetry  of 
Wordsworth  these  abound — age  having  solem- 
nized the  whole  frame  of  his  being,  that  was 
always  alive  to  religious  emotions — but  more 
than  ever  now,  as  around  his  paths  in  the 
evening  of  life  longer  fall  the  mysterious 
shadows.  More  fervid  lines  have  seldom 
flowed  from  his  spirit  in  its  devoutest  mood, 
than  some  awakened  by  the  sounds  and  sights 
of  a  happy  day  in  May — to  him — though  no 
church-bell  was  heard — a  Sabbath.  His  occa- 
sional poems  are  often  felt  by  us  to  be  linked 
together  by  the  finest  affinities,  which  perhaps 


SACRED  POETRY. 


193 


are  but  affinities  between  the  feelings  they  in- 
spire. Thus  we  turn  from  those  lines  to  some 
on  a  subject  seemingly  ver}'  different,  from  a 
feeling  of  such  fine  affinities — which  haply  are 
but  those  subsisting  between  all  things  and 
thoughts  that  are  pure  and  good.  We  hear  in 
them  how  the  Poet,  as  he  gazes  on  a  Family 
that  holds  not  the  Christian  Faith,  embraces 
them  in  the  folds  of  Christian  Love — and  how 
religion  as  well  as  nature  sanctifies  the  ten- 
derness that  is  yearning  at  his  heart  towards 
them — "a  Jewish  Family" — who,  though  out- 
casts by  Heaven's  decree,  are  not  by  Heaven, 
still  merciful  to  man,  left  forlorn  on  earth. 

How  exquisite  the  stanzas  composed  in  one 
of  the  Catholic  Chapels  in  Switzerland — 

"  Dooin'd  as  we  are  our  native  dust 
To  wet  with  many  a  hitter  shower. 
It  ill  liefits  !is  to  disdain 
The  Altar,  to  deride  the  Fane, 
Where  patient  siifTerers  hend,  in  trust 
To  win  a  happier  hour. 

"  I  love,  where  spreads  the  village  lawn. 
Upon  some  knee-worn  Cell  to  paze  ;  ^ 
Hail  to  the  firm  unmoving  Cross, 
Aloft,  where  pine  their  liranches  toss! 
And  to  the  Chapel  far  withdrawn. 
That  lurks  by  lonely  ways  I 

"Where'er  we  roam— alonp  the  hrink 
Of  Rhine— or  by  the  sweepini;  Po, 
Throu^rh  Alpine  vale,  or  champaign  wide, 
H'hale'cr  ve  look  on,  at  nnr  side 
Be  Charily— to  bid  vs  think 
Jlndfeel,  if  we  would  know." 

How  sweetly  are  interspersed  among  them 
some  of  humbler  mood,  most  touching  in  their 
simple  pathos — such  as  a  Hymn  for  the  boat- 
men as  they  approach  the  Rapids — Lines  on 
hearing  the  song  of  the  harvest  damsels  doat- 
ing  homeward  on  the  lake  of  Brientz — the  Ita- 
lian Itinerant  and  the  Swiss  Goatherd — and  the 
Three  Cottage  Girls,  representatives  of  Italian, 
of  Helvetian,  and  of  Scottish  beauty,  brought 
together,  as  if  by  magic,  into  one  picture,  each 
breathing  in  her  natural  grace  the  peculiar 
spirit  and  distinctive  character  of  her  country's 
charms!  Such  gentle  visions  disappear,  and 
we  sit  by  the  side  of  the  Poet  as  he  gazes  from 
his  boat  floating  on  the  Lake  of  Lugano,  on  the 
Church  of  San  Salvador,  which  was  almost 
destroyed  by  lightning  a  (ew  years  ago,  while 
the  altar  and  the  image  of  the  patron  saint 
were  untouched,  and  devout!}'  listen  while  he 
exclaims — 

"  Cliffs,  fountains,  rivers,  seasons,  times. 
Let  all  remind  the  soul  of  heaven ; 
Our  slack  devotion  needs  them  all ; 
And  faiih,  so  oft  of  sense  the  thrall. 
While  she,  by  aid  of  Nature,  climbs, 
May  hope  to  be  forgiven." 

We  do  not  hesitate  to  pronounce  "  Eclipse 
cf  the  Sun,  1820,"  one  of  the  finest  lyrical  effu- 
sions of  combined  thought,  passion,  sentiment, 
and  imagery,  within  the  whole  compass  of 
pjjetry.  If  the  beautiful  be  indeed  essentially 
different  from  the  sublime,  we  here  feel  that 
they  may  be  made  to  coalesce  so  as  to  be  in 
their  united  agencies  one  divine  power.  We 
called  it  lyrical,  chiefly  because  of  its  transi- 
tions. Though  not  an  ode,  it  is  ode-like  in  its 
invocations  ;  and  it  might  be  set  and  sung  to 
music  if  Handel  were  yet  alive,  and  St.  Cecilia 
25 


to  come  down  for  an  hour  from  heaven.  How 
solemn  the  opening  strain!  and  from  the  mo- 
mentary vision  of  Science  on  her  speculative 
Tower,  how  gently  glides  Imagination  down,  to 
take  her  place  by  the  Poet's  side,  in  his  bark 
afloat  beneath  Italian  skies — suddenly  be- 
dimmed,  lake,  land,  and  all,  with  a  something 
between  day  and  night.  In  a  moment  we  are 
conscious  of  Eclipse.  Our  slight  surprise  is 
lost  in  the  sense  of  a  strange  beauty — solemn 
not  sad — settling  on  the  face  of  nature  and  the 
abodes  of  men.  In  a  single  stanza  filled  with 
beautiful  names  of  the  beautiful,  we  have  a 
vision  of  the  Lake,  with  all  its  noblest  banks, 
and  bays,  and  bowers,  and  mountains — when 
in  an  instant  we  are  wafted  away  from  a  scene 
that  might  well  have  satisfied  our  imagination 
and  our  heart — if  high  emotions  were  not  un- 
controllable and  omnipotent — wafted  away  by 
Fancy  with  the  speed  of  Fire — lakes,  groves, 
cliffs,  mountains,  all  forgotten — and  alight  amid 
an  aerial  host  of  figures,  human  and  divine,  on 
a  spire  that  seeks  the  sky.  How  still  those 
imaged  sanctities  and  purities,  all  white  as 
snows  of  Apennine,  stand  in  the  heavenly  re- 
gion, circle  above  circle,  and  crowned  as  with 
a  zone  of  stars !  They  are  imbued  with  life. 
In  their  animation  ihe  figures  of  angels  and 
saints,  insensate  stones  no  more,  seem  to  feel 
the  Eclipse  that  shadows  them,  and  look  awful 
in  the  portentous  light.  In  his  inspiration  he 
transcends  the  grandeur  even  of  that  moment's 
vision — and  beholds  in  the  visages  of  that 
aerial  host  those  of  the  sons  of  heaven  darken- 
ing with  celestial  sorrow  at  the  Fall  of  Man — 
when 

"Throngs  of  celestial  visages, 

Darkenins;  like  water  in  the  breeze, 

A  holy  sadness  shared." 

Never  since  the  day  on  which  the  wondrous 
edifice,  in  its  consummate  glory,  first  saluted 
the  sun,  had  it  inspired  in  the  soul  of  kneeling 
saint  a  thought  so  sad  and  so  sublime — a 
thought  beyond  the  reaches  of  the  soul  of  him 
whose  genius  bade  it  bear  up  all  its  holy  adorn- 
ments so  far  from  earth,  that  the  silent  com- 
pany seem  sometimes,  as  light  and  shadow 
move  among  them,  to  be  in  ascension  to 
heaven.  But  th«  Sun  begins  again  to  look  like 
the  Sun,  and  the  poet,  relieved  by  the  joyful 
light  from  that  awful  trance,  delights  to  behold 

"Town  and  Tower, 
The  Vineyard  and  the  Olive  Bower, 
Their  lustre  re-assume;" 

and  "breathes  there  a  man  with  soul  so  dead," 
that  it  burns  not  within  him  as  he  hears  the 
heart  of  the  husband  and  the  father  breathe 
forth  its  love  and  its  fear,  remembering  on  a 
sudden  the  far  distant  whom  it  has  never  for- 
gotten— a  love  and  a  fear  that  saddens,  but  dis- 
turbs not,  for  the  vision  he  saw  had  inspired 
him  with  a  trust  in  the  tender  mercies  of  Godi 
Commit  to  faithful  memory,  0  Friend!  who 
may  some  time  or  other  be  a  traveller  over  the 
wide  world,  the  sacred  stanzas  that  brings  the 
Poem  to  a  close — and  it  will  not  fail  to  comfort 
thee  when  sitting  all  alone  by  the  well  in  the 
wilderness,  or  walking  along  the  strange  streets 
of  foreign  cities,  or  lying  in  thy  cot  at  midnigrrt 
afloat  on  far-oft'  seas. 
R 


194 


KECREATIOXS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  XORTH. 


"O  yp,  who  (Tiiard  and  crare  my  Home 
WhilR  in  far-distant  Lands  we  roam, 
Was  such  a  vision  eivcn  to  you  i 
Or,  wliile  we  look'd  willi  favniirM  eyes. 
Did  sullen  misl  hide  lake  and  skies 
And  mountains  from  your  viewl 

"I  ask  in  vain— and  know  far  less, 
If  sickness,  sorrow,  or  distress 
Have  spared  my  dwelling  to  lliis  hour; 
Sad  blindness :  hut  ordained  to  prove 
Oiir  faith  in  Heaven's  unfailing  love. 
And  all-controlling  power." 

Let  US  fly  from  Rydal  to  ShefTield.  James 
Montgomery  is  truly  a  religious  poet.  His  popu- 
larity, which  is  great,  has,  by  some  scribes  sit- 
ting in  the  armless  chairs  of  the  scorners,  been 
attributed  chiefly  to  the  power  of  sectarianism. 
He  is,  we  believe,  a  sectary;  and,  if  all  sects 
■were  animated  by  the  spirit  that  breathes 
throughout  his  poetry,  we  should  have  no  fears 
for  the  safety  and  stability  of  the  Established 
Church  ;  for  in  that  selfsame  spirit  was  she 
built,  and  by  that  selfsame  spirit  were  her 
foundations  dug  in  a  rock.  Many  are  the 
lights — solemn  and  awful  all — in  which  the 
eyes  of  us  mortal  creatures  may  see  the  Chris- 
tian dispensation.  Priends,  looking  down  from 
the  top  of  a  high  mountain  on  a  city-sprinkled 
plain,  have  each  his  own  vision  of  imagination 
— each  his  own  sinking  or  swelling  of  heart. 
They  urge  no  inquisition  into  the  peculiar  aflec- 
tions  of  each  other's  secret  breasts — all  assured, 
from  what  each  knows  of  his  brother,  thai  every 
eye  there  may  see  God — that  every  tongue  that 
has  the  gift  of  lofly  utterance  may  sing  his 
praises  aloud — that  the  lips  that  remain  silent 
may  be  mute  in  adoration — and  that  all  the 
distinctions  of  habits,  customs,  professions, 
modes  of  life,  even  natural  constitution  and 
form  of  character,  if  not  lost,  may  be  blended 
together  in  mild  amalgamation  under  the  com- 
mon atmosphere  of  emotion,  even  as  the  towers, 
domes,  and  temples,  are  all  softly  or  brightly 
interfused  with  the  huts,  cols,  and  homesteads — 
the  whole  scene  below  harmonious,  because  in- 
habited by  beings  created  by  the  same  God — 
in  his  own  image — and  destined  for  the  same 
immortality. 

It  is  base  therefore,  and  false,  to  attribute, 
in  an  invidious  sense,  any  of  Montgomery's 
fame  to  any  such  cause.  No  doubt  many  per- 
sons read  his  poetry  on  account  of  its  religion, 
who,  but  for  that,  would  not  have  read  it;  and 
no  doubt,  too,  many  of  them  neither  feel  nor 
understand  it.  But  so,  too,  do  many  persons 
read  Wordsworth's  poetry  on  account  of  its 
religion — the  religion  of  the  woods — who,  but 
for  that,  would  not  have  read  it ;  and  so,  too, 
many  of  them  neither  feel  nor  understand  it 
So  is  it  with  the  common  manners-painting 
poetry  of  Crabbe — the  dark  passion-painting 
poetry  of  Byron — the  high-romance-painting 
poetry  of  Scott — and  so  on  with  Moore,  Cole- 
ridge, Southey,  and  the  rest.  But  it  is  to  the 
mens  divinior,  however  displayed,  that  they 
owe  all  their  fame.  Had  Montgomery  not 
been  a  true  poet,  all  the  Religious  Magazines 
in  the  world  could  not  have  saved  his  name 
from  forgetfulness  and  oblivion.  He  might 
have  flaunted  his  day  like  the  melancholy 
Poppy — melancholy  in  all  its  ill-scented  gau- 
dincss  ;  but  as  it  is,  he  is  like  the  Rose  of 
Sharon,   whose  bairn   and  beauty   shall    not 


wither,  planted  on  the  bank  of  "  that  river 
whose  streams  make  glad  the  city  of  the  Lord." 

Indeed,  we  see  no  reason  why  poetry,  con- 
ceived in  the  spirit  of  a  most  exclusive  sec- 
tarianism, may  not  be  of  a  very  high  order,  and 
powerfully  impressive  on  minds  whose  reli- 
gious tenents  are  most  irreconcilable  and  hos- 
tile to  those  of  the  sect.  Feelings,  by  being 
unduly  concentrated,  are  not  thereby  necessa- 
rily enfeebled — on  the  contrary,  often  strength- 
ened; and  there  is  a  grand  austerity  which  the 
imagination  more  than  admires — which  the 
conscience  scarcely  condemns.  The  feeling, 
the  conviction  from  which  that  austerity  grows, 
is  in  itself  right;  for  it  is  a  feeling — a  convic- 
tion of  the  perfect  righteousness  of  Gid — the 
utter  worthlessness  of  self-left  man — the  awful 
sanctity  of  duty — and  the  dreadfulness  of  the 
judgment-doom,  from  which  no  soul  is  safe  till 
the  seals  have  been  broken,  and  the  Archangel 
has  blown  his  trumpet.  A  religion  planted  in 
such  convictions  as  these,  may  become  dark 
and  disordered  in  its  future  growth  within  the 
spirit;  and  the  tree,  though  of  good  seed  and 
in  a  strong  soil,  may  come  to  be  laden  M'ilh 
bitter  fruit,  and  the  very  droppings  of  its  leaves 
may  be  pernicious  to  all  who  rest  within  its 
shade.  Still,  such  shelter  is  heller  in  the  blast 
than  the  trunk  of  a  dead  faath ;  and  such  food, 
unwholesome  though  it  be,  is  not  so  miserable 
as  famine  to  a  hungry  soul. 

Grant,  then,  that  there  may  be  in  Mr.  Mont- 
gomery's poetry  certain  senliments,  which,  in 
want  of  a  belter  word,  we  call  Sectarian. 
They  are  not  necessarily  false,  althtuigh  not 
perfectly  reconcilable  to  our  own  creed,  which, 
we  shall  suppose,  is  true.  On  the  contrary, 
we  may  be  made  much  the  belter  and  the 
wiser  men  by  meditating  upon  them ;  for 
while  they  may,  perhaps,  (and  we  are  merely 
tuaking  a  supposition,)  be  too  strongly  felt  by 
him,  they  may  be  too  feebly  felt  by  us — they 
may,  perhaps,  be  rather  blots  on  the  beauty  of 
his  poetry  than  of  his  faith — and  if,  in  some 
degree,  otTcnsive  in  the  composition  of  a  poem, 
far  less  so,  or  not  at  all,  in  that  of  a  life. 

All  his  shorter  poems  are  stamped  with  the 
character  of  the  man.  Most  of  them  are  breath- 
ings of  his  own  devout  spirit,  either  delighted 
or  awed  by  a  sense  of  the  Divine  goodness 
and  mercy  towards  itself,  or  tremblingly  alive 
— not  in  mere  sensibility  to  human  virtues  and 
joys,  crimes  and  sorrows,  for  that  often  belongs 
to  the  diseased  and  depraved — but  in  solemn, 
moral,  and  religious  thought,  to  all  of  good  or 
evil  befalling  his  brethren  of  mankind.  "A 
sparrow  cannot  fall  to  the  ground" — a  flower 
of  the  field  cannot  wither  immediately  before 
his  eyes — without  awakening  in  his  heart 
such  thoughts  as  we  may  believe  God  in- 
tended should  be  awakened  even  by  such 
sights  as  these ;  for  the  fall  of  a  sparrow  is 
a  scriptural  illustration  of  his  providence,  and 
his  hand  frairied  the  lily,  whose  array  is  more 
royal  than  was  that  of  Soloinon  in  all  his  glory. 
Herein  he  resembles  Wordsworth — less  pro- 
found certainly — less  lofty;  for  in  its  highest 
moods  the  genius  of  Wordsworth  walks  by 
itself — unapproachable — on  the  earth  it  beau- 
tifies. But  Montgomery's  poetical  piety  is  far 
more  prevalent  over  his  whole  character;  it 


SACRED  POETRY. 


19J 


belongs  more  essentially  and  permanently  to 
ine  man.  Perhaps,  although  we  shall  not  say 
so,  it  may  be  more  simple,  natural,  and  true. 
More  accordant  it  certainly  is,  with  the  sym- 
pathies of  ordinary  minds.  The  piety  of  his 
poetry  is  far  more  Christian  than  that  of  Words- 
worth's. It  is  in  all  his  feelings,  all  his  thoughts, 
all  his  imagery ;  and  at  the  close  of  most  of 
his  beautiful  compositions,  which  are  so  often 
avowals,  confessions,  prayers,  thanksgivings, 
we  feel,  not  the  moral,  but  the  religion  of  his 
song.  He  "  improves"  all  the  "occasions"  of 
this  life,  because  he  has  an  "  eye  that  broods 
on  its  own  heart;"  and  that  heart  is  impressed 
by  all  lights  and  shadows,  like  a  river  or  lake 
whose  waters  are  pure — pure  in  their  sources 
and  in  their  course.  He  is,  manifestl3%  a  man 
of  the  kindliest  home-afTections;  and  these, 
though  it  is  to  be  hoped  the  commonest  of  all, 
preserved  to  him  in  unabated  glow  and  fresh- 
ness by  innocence  and  piety,  often  give  vent  to 
themselves  in  little  hymns  and  odelike  strains, 
of  which  the  rich  and  even  novel  imagery 
sliows  how  close  is  the  connection  between  a 
pure  heart  and  a  fine  fancy,  and  that  the  flowers 
of  poetry  may  be  brought  from  afar,  nor  yet  be 
felt  to  be  exotics — to  intertwine  with  the  very 
simplest  domestic  feelings  and  thoughts — so 
simple,  so  perfectly  human,  that  there  is  a 
touch  of  surprise  on  seeing  them  capable  of 
such  adornment,  and  more  than  a  touch  of 
pleasure  on  feeling  how  much  that  adornment 
becomes  them — brightening  without  changing, 
and  adding  admiration  to  delight — wonder  to 
love. 

Montgomery,  too,  is  almost  as  much  of  an 
egotist  as  Wordsworth  ;  and  thence,  frequently, 
his  power.  The  poet  who  keeps  all  the  ap- 
pearances of  external  nature,  and  even  all  the 
passions  of  humanity,  at  arm's  length,  that  he 
may  gaze  on,  inspect,  study,  and  draw  their 
portraits,  either  in  the  garb  they  ordinarily 
wear,  or  in  a  fancy  dress,  is  likely  to  produce 
a  strong  likeliness  indeed;  yet  shall  his  pic- 
tures be  wanting  in  ease  and  freedom — they 
shall  be  cold  and  stiff — and  both  passion  and 
imagination  shall  desiderate  something  charac- 
teristic in  nature,  of  the  mountain  or  the  man. 
But  the  poet  who  hugs  to  his  bosom  every 
t'ning  he  loves  or  admires — themselves,  or  the 
thoughts  that  are  their  shadows — who  is  him- 
self still  the  centre  of  the  enchanted  circle — 
who,  in  the  delusion  of  a  strong  creative  genius, 
absolutely  believes  that  were  he  to  die,  all  that 
he  now  sees  and  hears  delighted  would  die 
with  him — who  not  only  sees 

"Poetic  visions  swarm  on  every  bougti," 
but  the  history  of  all  his  own  most  secret 
emotions  written  on  the  very  rocks — who 
gathers  up  the  many  beautiful  things  that  in 
the  prodigality  of  nature  lie  scattered  over  the 
earth,  neglected  or  unheeded,  and  the  more 
dearly,  the  more  passionately  loves  them,  be- 
cause they  are  now  appropriated  to  the  uses 
of  his  own  imagination,  who  will  by  her 
alchymy  so  further  brighten  them  that  the 
thousands  of  eyes  that  formerly  passed  them 
by  Tjnseen  or  scorned,  will  be  dazzled  by  their 
rare  and  transcendent  beauty — he  is  the  "  pre- 
vailing Poet !"  Montgomery  neither  seeks  nor 
bhuns  those  dark  thoughts  that  will  come  and 


go,  night  and  day,  unbidden,  forbidden  across 
the  minds  of  all  men — fortified  although  the 
main  entrances  may  be;  but  when  they  do  in- 
vade his  secret,  solitary  hours,  he  turns  even 
such  visitants  to  a  happy  account,  and  ques- 
tions them,  ghostlike  as  they  are,  concerning 
both  the  future  and  the  past.  Melancholy  as 
often  his  views  are,  we  should  not  suppose 
him  a  man  of  other  than  a  cheerful  mind;  for 
whenever  the  theme  allows  or  demands  it,  he 
is  not  averse  to  a  sober  glee,  a  composed  gaye- 
ty  that,  although  we  cannot  say  it  ever  so  far 
sparkles  out  as  to  deserve  to  be  called  ab- 
solutely brilliant,  yet  lends  a  charm  to  his 
lighter-toned  compositions,  which  it  is  peculiar- 
ly pleasant  now  and  then  to  feel  in  the  writ- 
ings of  a  man  whose  genius  is  naturally,  and 
from  the  course  of  life,  not  gloomy  indeed,  but 
pensive,  and  less  disposed  to  indulge  itself  ia 
smiles  than  in  tears. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Peoplk  now-a-days  will  write,  because  they 
see  so  many  writing;  the  impulse  comes  upon 
them  from  without,  not  from  within ;  loud 
voices  from  streets  and  squares  of  cities  call 
on  them  to  join  the  throng,  but  the  still  small 
voice  that  speakcth  in  the  penetralia  of  the 
spirit  is  mute ;  and  what  else  can  be  the  re- 
sult, but,  in  place  of  the  song  of  lark,  or  linnet, 
or  nightingale,  at  the  best  a  concert  of  mock- 
ing-birds, at  the  worst  an  oratorio  of  ganders 
and  bubbleys  1 

At  this  particular  juncture  or  crisis,  the  dis- 
ease would  fain  assume  the  symptoms  of  re- 
ligious inspiration.  The  poetasters  are  all 
pious — all  smitten  with  sanctity — Christian  all 
over — and  crossing  and  jostling  on  the  Course 
of  Time — as  they  think,  on  the  high-road  to 
Heaven  and  Immortality.  Never  was  seen 
before  such  a  shameless  set  of  hypocrites. 
Down  on  their  knees  they  fall  in  booksellers' 
shops,  and,  crowned  with  foolscap,  repeat  to 
Blue-Stockings  prayers  addressed  in  doggerel 
to  the  Deity  !  They  bandy  about  the  Bible  as 
if  it  were  an  Album.  They  forget  that  the 
poorest  sinner  has  a  soul  to  be  saved,  as  well 
as  a  set  of  verses  to  l)e  damned;  they  look 
forward  to  the  First  of  the  Month  with  more 
fear  and  trembling  than  to  the  Last  Day  ;  and 
beseech  a  critic  to  be  merciful  upon  them  with 
far  more  earnestness  than  they  ever  beseeched 
their  Maker.  They  pray  through  the  press — 
vainly  striving  to  give  some  publicity  to  what 
must  be  private  for  evermore  ;  and  are  seen 
wiping  away,  at  tea-parties,  the  tears  of  contri- 
tion and  repentance  for  capital  crimes  per- 
petrated but  on  paper,  and  perpetrated  thereon 
so  paltrily,  that  so  far  from  being  worthy  o( 
hell-fire,  such  delinquents,  it  is  felt,  would  be 
more  suitably  punished  by  being  singed  like 
plucked  fowls  with  their  own  unsaleable  sheets 
They  are  frequently  so  singed;  yet  singeing 
has  not  the  effect  upon  them  for  which  singe 
ing  is  designed ;  and  like  chickens  in  a  shower 
thathave  got  the  pip,  they  keep  still  gasping  and 
shooting  out  their  tongues,  and  walking  on  tip 
toe  with  their  tails  down,  till  finally  they  go  to 


196 


RECREATIOXS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  ^ORTH. 


roosi  in  some  obscure  corner,  and  are  no  more 
seen  among  bipeds. 

Among  those,  however,  who  have  been  un- 
fortunately beguiled  by  the  spirit  of  imitation 
and  sympathy  into  religious  poetry,  one  or  two 
— who  for  the  present  must  be  nameless — 
have  shown  feeling;  and  would  they  but  obey 
their  feeling,  and  prefer  walking  on  the  ground 
■with  their  own  free  feet,  to  attempting  to  fly  in 
the  air  with  borrowed  and  bound  wings,  they 
might  produce  something  really  poetical,  and 
acquire  a  creditable  reputation.  But  they  are 
too  aspiring;  and  have  taken  into  their  hands 
the  sacred  lyre  without  due  preparation.  He 
who  is  so  familiar  with  his  Bible,  that  edch 
chapter,  open  it  where  he  will,  teems  with 
household  words,  may  draw  thence  the  theme 
of  many  a  pleasant  and  pathetic  song.  For  is 
not  all  human  nature,  and  all  human  life, 
shadowed  forth  in  those  pages  1  But  the  heart, 
to  sing  well  from  the  Bible,  must  be  embued 
with  religious  feelings,  as  a  flower  is  alter- 
nately with  dew  and  sunshine.  The  study  of 
The  Book  must  have  been  begun  in  the  sim- 
plicity of  childhood,  when  it  was  felt  to  be  in- 
deed divine — and  carried  on  through  all  those 
silent  intervals  in  which  the  soul  of  manhood 
is  restored,  during  the  din  of  life,  to  the  purity 
and  peace  of  its  early  being.  The  Bible  mu>t 
be  to  such  a  poet  even  as  the  sky — with  its 
sun,  moon,  and  stars — its  boundless  blue  with 
all  its  cloud-mysteries — its  peace  deeper  than 
the  grave,  because  of  realms  beyond  the  grave 
— its  tumult  louder  than  that  of  life,  because  j 
heard  altogether  in  all  the  elements.  He  who 
begins  the  study  of  the  Bible  late  in  life,  must, ' 
indeed,  devote  himself  to  it — night  and  day — 
and  with  an  humble  and  a  contrite  heart  as  well 
as  an  awakened  and  soaring  spirit,  ere  he  can  , 
hope  to  feel  what  he  understands,  or  to  under- 
stand what  he  feels — thoughts  and  feelings  i 
breathing  in  upon  him,  as  if  from  a  region  \ 
hanging,  in  its  mystery,  between  heaven  and  ' 
earth.  Nor  do  we  think  that  he  will  lightly  i 
venture  on  the  composition  of  poetry  drawn 
from  such  a  source.  The  very  thought  of  doing 
so,  were  it  to  occur  to  his  mind,  would  seem 
irreverent ;  it  would  convince  him  that  he  was  ^ 
still  the  slave  of  vanity,  and  pride,  and  the  ' 
world.  I 

They  alone,  therefofe,  to  whom  God  has  ; 
given  genius  as  well  as  faith,  zeal,  and  bene- ' 
volencc — will,  of  their  own  accord,  fix  their 
Pindus  either  on  Lebanon  or  Calvary — and 
of  these  but  few.  The  genius  must  be  high — 
the  faith  sure — and  human  love  must  coalesce 
with  divine,  that  the  strain  may  have  power 
to  reach  the  spirits  of  men,  immersed  as  they 
are  in  matter,  and  with  all  their  apprehensions 
and  conceptions  blended  with  material  image- 
ry, and  the  things  of  this  moving  earth  and 
this  restless  life. 

So  gifted  and  so  endowed,  a  great  or  good 
poet,  having  chosen  his  subject  well  within 
religion,  is  on  the  sure  road  to  immortal  fame. 
His  work,  when  done,  must  secure  sympathy 
for  ever  ;  a  sympathy  not  dependent  on  creeds, 
1  ut  out  of  which  creeds  spring,  all  of  them 
inanifpstly  moulded  by  imaginative  alTections 
jf  religion.  Christian  Poetry  will  outlive 
every  other;   for   the   time  will   come  when 


Christian  Poetry  will  be  deeper  and  higher  far 
than  any  that  has  ever  yet  been  known  among 
men.  Indeed,  the  sovereign  songs  hitherto 
have  been  either  religious  or  superstitious; 
and  as  "the  day-spring  from  on  High  that  has 
visited  us"  spreads  wider  and  Avider  over  the 
earth,  "the  soul  of  the  world,  dreaming  of 
things  to  come,"  shall  assuredly  see  more  glo- 
rified visions  than  have  yet  been  submitted  to 
her  ken.  That  Poetry  has  so  seldom  satisfied 
the  utmost  longings  and  aspirations  of  human 
nature,  can  only  have  been  because  Poetry  has 
so  seldom  dealt  in  its  power  with  the  only 
mysteries  worth  knowing — the  greater  mys- 
teries of  religion,  into  which  the  Christian  is 
initiated  only  ihroush  faith,  an  angel  sent  from 
heaven  to  spirits  struggling  by  supplications 
and  sacrifices  to  escape  from  sin  and  death. 

These,  and  many  other  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings concerning  the  "Vision  and  the  Faculty 
divine,"  when  employed  on  divine  subjects, 
have  arisen  within  us,  on  reading — which  we 
have  often  done  with  delight — "The  Christian 
Year,"  so  full  of  Christian  poetry  of  the  purest 
charaeter.  iMr.  Keble  is  a  poet  whom  Cowper 
himself  would  have  loved — for  in  him  piety 
inspires  genius,  and  fancy  and  feeling  are 
celesiialized  by  religion.  We  peruse  his  book 
in  a  tone  and  temper  of  spirit  similar  to  that 
which  is  breathed  upon  us  by  some  calm  day 
in  spring,  when  all  imagery  is  serene  and  stiil 
— cheerful  in  the  main — yet  M-ith  a  touch  and 
a  tinge  of  melancholy,  which  makes  all  the 
blended  bliss  and  beauty  at  once  more  endear- 
ing and  more  profound.  We  should  no  more 
think  of  criticising  such  poetry  than  of  criti- 
cising the  clear  blue  skies — the  soft  green 
earth — the  "liquid  lapse"  of  an  unpolluted 
stream,  that 

"Poih  mnkp  swcot  imisic  with  the  pnamell'd  stones, 
(iivini!  n  cenllc  kiss  to  every  flower 
It  ovortalietli  on  its  pilgrimage." 

All  is  purity  and  peace;  as  we  look  and  listen, 
we  partake  of  the  universal  calm,  and  feel  in 
nature  the  presence  of  Him  from  whom  it 
emanated.  Indeed,  we  do  not  remember  any 
poetry  nearly  so  beautiful  as  this,  which  re- 
miiuls  one  so  seldom  of  the  poet's  art.  We 
read  it  without  ever  thinking  of  the  place 
which  its  author  may  hold  among  poets,  just  as 
we  behold  a  "  lily  of  the  field"  without  com- 
paring it  with  other  flowers,  but  satisfied  with 
its  own  pure  and  simple  loveliness;  or  each 
separate  poem  may  be  likened,  in  its  unos- 
tentatious— unambitious — unconscious  beauty 
— to 

"A  violet  l)y  n  mossy  stone, 
Half  hidden  to  the  eye." 

Of  all  the  flowers  that  sweeten  this  fair 
earth,  the  violet  is  indeed  the  most  delightful 
in  itself — form,  fragrance,  and  colour — nor  less 
in  the  humility  of  its  birthplace,  and  in  its 
haunts  in  the  "sunshiny  shade."  Therefore, 
'tis  a  meet  emblem  of  those  sacred  songs  that 
may  be  said  to  blossom  on  Mount  Sion. 

The  most  imaginative  poelrj'  inspired  by 
Nature,  and  dedicated  to  her  praise,  is  never 
perfectly  and  consummately  beautiful  fill  it 
ascends  into  the  religious;  but  then  religion 
breathes  from,  and  around,  and  about  it,  only 
at  last  when  the  poet  has  been  h'ought.  by  the 


SACRED  POETRY. 


197 


leading  of  his  own  aroused  spirit,  to  the  utmost 
pitch  of  his  inspiration.  He  begins,  and  con- 
tinues long,  unblamed  in  mere  emotions  of 
beauty;  and  he  often  pauses  unblamed,  and 
brings  his  strain  to  a  close,  without  having 
forsaken  this  earth,  and  the  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings which  belong  alone  to  this  earth.  But 
poetry  like  that  of  the  "  Christian  Year"  springs 
at  once,  visibly  and  audibly,  from  religion  as 
its  fount.  If  it,  indeed,  issue  from  one  of  the 
many  springs  religion  opens  in  the  human 
heart,  no  fear  of  its  ever  being  dried  up. 
Small  indeed  may  seem  the  silver  line,  when 
first  the  rill  steals  forth  from  its  sacred  source  ! 
But  how  soon  it  begins  to  sing  with  a  clear 
loud  voice  in  the  solitude  !  Bank  and  brae — 
tree,  shrub,  and  flower — grow  greener  at  each 
successive  waterfall — the  rains  no  more  dis- 
turb that  limpid  element  than  the  dews — and 
never  does  it  lose  some  reflection  of  the  hea- 
vens. 

In  a  few  modest  words,  Mr.  Keble  states  the 
aim  and  object  of  his  volume.  •  He  says  truly, 
that  it  is  the  peculiar  happiness  of  the  Church 
of  England  to  possess  in  her  authorized  formu- 
laries an  ample  and  secure  provision,  both  for 
a  sound  rule  of  faith  and  a  sober  standard  of 
feeling  in  matters  of  practical  religion.  The 
object  of  his  publication  will  be  attained,  if 
any  person  find  assistance  from  it  in  bringing 
his  own  thoughts  and  feelings  into  more  entire 
unison  with  those  recommended  and  exempli- 
fied in  the  Prayer-Book.  We  add,  that  its  ob- 
ject has  been  attained.  In  England,  "The 
Christian  Year"  is  already  placed  in  a  thou- 
sand homes  among  household  books.  People 
are  neither  blind  nor  deaf  yet  to  lovely  sights 
and  sounds — and  a  true  poet  is  as  certain  of 
recognition  now  as  at  any  period  of  our  litera- 
ture. In  Scotland  we  have  no  prayer-book 
printed  on  paper — perhaps  it  would  be  better 
if  we  had ;  but  the  prayer-book  which  has  in- 
spired Mr.  Keble,  is  compiled  and  composed 
from  another  Book,  which,  we  believe,  is  more 
read  in  Scotland  than  in  any  other  country. 
Here  the  Sabbath  reigns  in  power,  that  is  felt 
to  be  a  sovereign  power  over  all  the  land.  We 
have,  it  may  be  said,  no  prescribed  holydays ; 
but  all  the  events  recorded  in  the  Bible,  and 
which  in  England  make  certain  days  holy  in 
outward  as  well  as  inward  observances,  are 
familiar  to  our  knowledge  and  our  feeling  here; 
and  therefore  the  poetry  that  seeks  still  more  to 
hallow  them  to  the  heart,  will  find  every  good 
heart  recipient  of  its  inspiration — for  the  Chris- 
tian creed  is  "  wide  and  general  as  the  casing 
air,"  and  felt  as  profoundly  in  the  Highland 
heather-glen,  where  no  sound  of  psalms  is 
heard  but  on  the  Sabbath,  as  in  the  cathedral 
towns  and  cities  of  England,  where  so  often 

"Throiijrli  the  Ions-drawn  aisle  and  fretted  vault, 
The  pealing  anilioin  swells  the  note  of  praise." 

Poetry  in  our  age  has  been  made  too  much 
a  thing  to  talk  about — to  show  off" upon — as  if 
the  writing  and  the  reading  of  it  were  to  be 
reckoned  among  what  are  commonly  called 
accomplishments.  Thus,  poets  have  too  often 
sacrificed  the  austere  sanctity  of  the  divine  art 
to  most  unworthy  purposes,  of  which,  perhaps, 
the  most  unworthy — for  it  implies  much  vo- 
luntary self-degradation — is  mere  popularity. 


Against  all  such  low  aims  he  is  preserved, 
who,  with  Christian  meekness,  approaches  the 
muse  in  the  sanctuaries  of  religion.  He  seeks 
not  to  force  his  songs  on  the  public  ear ;  his 
heart  is  free  from  the  fever  of  fame ;  his  poet- 
ry is  praise  and  prayer.  It  meets  our  ear  like 
the  sound  of  psalms  from  some  unseen  dwell- 
ing among  the  woods  or  hills,  at  which  the 
wayfarer  or  wanderer  stops  on  his  journey, 
and  feels  at  every  pause  a  holier  solemnity  in 
the  silence  of  nature.  Such  poetry  is  indeed 
got  by  heart ;  and  memory  is  then  tenacious  to 
the  death,  for  her  hold  on  what  she  loves  is 
strengthened  as  much  by  grief  as  by  joy;  and, 
when  even  hope  itself  is  dead — if,  indeed,  hope 
ever  dies — the  trust  is  committed  to  despair. 
Words  are  often  as  unforgetable  as  voiceless 
thoughts ;  they  become  very  thoughts  them- 
selves, and  arc  what  they  represent.  How  are 
many  of  the  simply,  rudely,  but  fervently  and 
beautifully  rhymed  Psalms  of  David,  very  part 
and  parcel  of  the  most  spiritual  treasures  of 
the  Scottish  peasant's  being  ! 

"The  Lord's  my  shepherd,  I'll  not  want, 
He  makes  me  down  to  lie 
In  pastures  green  :  he  leadeth  me 
The  quiet  waters  by." 

These  four  lines  sanctify  to  the  thoughtful 
shepherd  on  the  braes  every  stream  that  glides 
through  the  solitary  places — they  have  ol^ten 
given  colours  to  the  greensward  beyond  the 
brightness  of  all  herbage  and  of  all  flowers. 
Thrice  hallowed  is  that  poetry  which  makes 
us  mortal  creatures  feel  the  union  that  subsists 
between  the  Book  of  Nature  and  the  Book  of 
Life! 

Poetry  has  endeared  childhood  by  a  thou- 
sand pictures,  in  which  fathers  and  mothers 
behold  with  deeper  love  the  faces  of  their  own 
ofl^spring.  Such  poetry  has  almost  always  been 
the  production  of  the  strongest  and  wisest 
minds.  Common  intellects  derive  no  power 
from  earliest  memories ;  the  primal  morn,  to 
them  never  bright,  has  utterly  faded  in  the 
smoky  day;  the  present  has  swallowed  up  thr 
past, as  the  future  will  swallow  up  the  present, 
each  season  of  life  seems  to  stand  by  itself  as 
a  separate  existence ;  and  when  old  age  comes, 
how  helpless,  melancholy,  and  forlorn!  But 
he  who  lives  in  the  spirit  of  another  creed, 
sees  far  into  the  heart  of  Christianity.  He 
hears  a  divine  voice  saying — "  Sufl^er  little 
children  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them  not, 
for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven  !"  Thus 
it  is  that  poetry  throws  back  upon  the  New 
Testament  the  light  she  has  borrowed  from  it, 
and  that  man's  mortal  brother  speaks  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  Saviour  of  man.  On  a  dead, 
insensible  flower — a  lily — a  rose — a  violet — a 
daisy,  Poetry  may  pour  out  all  its  divinest 
power — just  as  the  sun  itself  sometimes  seems 
to  look  with  all  its  light  on  some  one  especial 
blossom,  all  at  once  made  transparently  lus- 
trous. And  what  if  the  flower  be  alive  in  all 
its  leaves — and  have  in  it  an  immortal  spirit? 
Or  what  if  its  leaves  be  dead,  and  the  immor- 
tal spirit  gone  away  to  heaven  1  Genius  shall 
change  death  into  sleep — till  the  grave,  in  itself 
so  dark  and  dismal,  shall  seem  a  bed  of  bright 
and  celestial  repose,  'i'rom  poetr}%  in  words 
or  marble— both  alike  still  and  serene  as  water 
a2 


198 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


upon  grass — we  turn  to  the  New  Testament, 
and  read  of  the  "Holy  Innocents."  "They 
were  redeemed  from  among  men,  being  the 
first-fruits  unto  God  and  to  the  Lamb."  We 
look  down  into  the  depths  of  that  text — and  we 
then  turn  again  to  Keble's  lines,  which  from 
those  depths  have  flowed  over  upon  the  unin- 
spired page  !  Yet  not  uninspired — if  that  name 
may  be  given  to  strains  which,  like  the  airs 
that  had  touched  the  flowers  of  Paradise, 
"whisper  whence  they  stole  those  balmy 
sweets."  Revelation  has  shown  us  that  "  we 
are  greater  than  we  know;"  and  who  may 
neglect  the  Infancy  of  that  Being  for  whom 
Godhead  died  ! 

They  who  read  the  lines  on  "the  Holy  In- 
nocents" in  a  mood  of  mind  woilhy  of  them, 
will  go  on,  with  an  equal  delight,  through  those 
on  "  The  Epiphany."  They  are  separated  in 
the  volume  by  some  kindred  and  congenial 
strains;  but  when  brought  close  together,  they  | 
occupy  the  still  region  of  thought  as  two  large 
clear  stars  do  of  themselves  seem  to  occupy 
the  entire  sky. 

How  far  better  than  skilfully — how  inspiredly 
does  this  Christian  poet  touch  upon  each  suc- 
cessive holy  theme — winging  his  way  through 
the  stainless  ether  like  some  dove  gliding  from  , 
tree  to  tree,  and  leaving  one  place  of  rest  only  | 
for  another  equally  happy,  on  the  folding  and  | 
unfolding  of  its  peaceful  flight!  Of  lale  j 
many  versifiers  have  attempted  the  theme ; 
and  some  of  ihem  with  shameful  unsuccess. 
A  bad  poem  on  such  a  subject  is  a  sin.  He 
who  is  a  Christian  indeed,  will,  when  the  star 
of  Bethlehem  rises  before  his  closed  eyes,  be 
mute  beneath  the  image,  or  he  will  hail  it  in 
strains  simple  as  were  those  of  the  shepherds 
watching  their  flocks  by  night  when  it  appear- 
ed of  old,  high  as  were  those  of  the  sages  who 
came  from  the  East  bearing  incense  to  the 
Child  in  the  Manser.  Such  are  this  Poet's 
strains,  evolving  themselves  out  of  the  few 
words—"  Behold,  the  star,  which  they  saw  in 
the  east,  went  before  them,  till  it  came  and 
stood  over  where  the  young  Child  was  :  when 
they  saw  the  star,  they  rejoiced  with  exceeding 
great  joy." 

The  transition  from  those  aflTjcting  lines  is 
natural  and  delightful  to  a  strain  further  on  in 
the  volume,  entitled  "  Catechism."  How  soon 
the  infant  spirit  is  touched  with  love — another 
name  for  religion — none  may  dare  to  say  who 
have  watched  the  eyes  of  little  children.  Feel- 
ing and  thought  would  seem  to  come  upon 
them  like  very  inspiration — so  strong  it  often 
is,  and  sudden,  and  clear  ;  yet,  no  doubt,  all  the 
work  of  natural  processes  going  on  within 
Immortality.  The  wisdom  of  age  has  often 
been  seen  in  the  simplicity  of  childhood- 
creatures  but  five  or  six  years  old— soon  per- 
haps about  to  disappear — astonishing,  and 
saddening,  and  subliming  the  souls  of  their 
parents  and  their  parents'  friends,  by  a  holy 
precocity  of  all  pitiful  and  compassionate  feel- 
ings, blended  into  a  mysterious  piety  that  has 
made  them  sing  happy  hymns  on  the  brink  of 
leath  and  the  grave.  Such  alfecting  instances 
of  almost  infantine  unfolding  of  the  spirit  be- 
neath spiritual  influence  should  not  be  rare — 
•lor  are  they  rare- in  truly  Christian  house- 


'  holds.  Almost  as  soon  as  the  heart  is  moveit 
b}^  filial  afiection,  that  affection  grows  reverent 
I  even  to  earthly  parents — and,  erelong,  becomes 
,  piety  towards  the  name  of  God  and  Saviour. 
Yet  philosophers  have  said  that  the  child  must 
not  be  too  soon  spoken  to  about  religion.  Will 
they  fix  the  time  1  No — let  religion — a  myriad- 
meaning  word — be  whispered  and  breathed 
round  about  them,  as  soon  as  intelligence 
smiles  in  their  eyes  and  quickens  their  ears, 
while  enjoying  the  sights  and  sounds  of  their 
own  small  yet  multitudinous  world. 

Let  us  turn  to  another  strain  of  the  same 
mood,  which  will  be  read  with  tears  by  many 
a  grateful  heart — on  the  "  Churching  of  Wo- 
men." What  would  become  of  us  without  the 
ceremonies  of  religion  1  How  they  strengthen 
the  piety  out  of  which  they  spring !  How,  by 
concentrating  all  that  is  holy  and  divine  around 
their  outward  fjrms,  do  they  purify  and  sanc- 
tify the  afltctions !  AVhat  a  change  on  his 
infant's  face  is  wrought  before  a  father's  eyes 
by  Baptism  I  How  the  heart  of  the  husband 
and  the  father  yearns,  as  he  sees  the  wife  and 
mother  kneeling  in  thanksgiving  after  child- 
birth ! 

"  Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field  how  they 
grow:  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin;  and 
yet  I  say  unto  you,  that  even  Solomon  in  all 
his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these." 
What  is  all  the  poetry  that  genius  ever  breathed 
over  all  the  flowers  of  this  earth,  to  that  one 
divine  sentence !  It  has  inspired  our  Chris- 
tian poet — and  here  is  bis  heart-felt  homily. 

FIFTEKNTII    SCXnAI    AFTEn    TniNITT. 

"  Sweet  niirslines  of  the  vernal  skiea, 
Ballicd  in  sonnir!*,  and  fed  witli  dew. 

What  more  then  niacir  in  yon  lies 
To  till  I  he  hearl'a  fond  view  1 

In  childhooil's  uporls  ronipanions  pay, 

In  sorrow,  on  Life's  downward  way, 

How  sooihinpl  in  our  last  decay 
Memorials  prompt  and  true. 

"  Relics  ye  are  of  Eden's  bowers. 

As  pure,  as  fraerani,  and  as  fair. 
As  when  ye  crown'd  the  sunshine  hours 

Of  happy  wanderers  there. 
Fall'n  ail  beside— the  world  of  life.  .., 

How  is  it  slain'd  wlih  fear  and  strife  ! 
In  Reason's  world  what  storms  are  rife, 

What  passions  rage  and  glare  : 

"But  cheerful  and  unrhanped  the  while 
Your  first  and  perfect  form  ye  show, 

The  same  that  won  Kve's  matnin  smile 
In  the  world's  oponinp  plow. 

The  stars  of  Heaven  a  course  are  taught 

Too  hich  above  our  human  thought; — 

Ye  may  be  found  if  ye  are  sought. 
And  as  we  gaze  we  know. 

"  Ye  dwoll  besid?  our  paths  and  homes, 
Our  paths  of  sin.  our  homes  of  sorroiv. 

And  euiliy  man,  where'er  he  roams, 
Your  innocent  mirih  may  borrow. 

The  birds  of  air  before  us  fleet. 

They  cannot  brook  our  shame  to  meet — 

But  we  may  taste  your  solace  sweet, 
And  come  again  to-morrow. 

"Ye  fearless  in  your  nests  abide — 

Nor  may  we  scorn,  loo  proudly  wise. 

Your  silent  lessons,  undescricd 
By  all  but  lowly  eyes  ; 

For  ye  could  draw  th'  admirin);  gaze 

Of  Him  who  worlds  and  heari.s  surveys  : 

Your  orili'r  wild,  your  fracrant  maze, 
He  taught  us  how  to  prize. 

"Ye  felt  j'our  .Maker's  smile  that  hour. 

As  when  he  paused  and  own'd  you  good. 
His  blessins  on  earth's  primal  bower, 
Yet  felt  it  all  renew'd. 


SACRED  POETRY. 


199 


What  care  ye  now,  if  winter's  storm  | 

Sweep  ruthless  o'er  each  silken  form  ■? 
Christ's  blessing  at  your  heart  is  warm. 
Ye  fear  no  vexing  mood. 

"Alas!  of  thousand  bosoms  kind. 

That  daily  court  you  and  caress. 
How  few  the  happy  secret  find 

Of  your  calm  loveliness  ! 
'  Live  for  to-day  ;  to-morrow's  light 
To-morrow's  cares  shall  bring  to  sight. 
Go,  sleep  like  closing  flowers  at  night. 

And  Heaven  thy  morn  will  bless.'  " 

Such  poetry  as  this  must  have  a  fine  influ- 
ence on  all  the  best  human  affections.  Sacred 
are  such  songs  to  sorrow — and  sorrow  is  either 
a  frequent  visiter,  or  a  domesticated  inmate,  in 
every  household.  Religion  may  thus  be  made 
to  steal  unawares,  even  during  ordinary  hours, 
into  the  commonest  ongoings  of  life.  Call  not 
the  mother  unhappy  who  closes  the  eyes  of  her 
dead  child,  whether  it  has  smiled  lonely  in  the 
house,  the  sole  delight  of  her  eyes,  or  bloomed 
among  other  flowers,  now  all  drooping  for  its 
sake — nor  yet  call  the  father  unhappy  who 
lays  his  sweet  son  below  the  earth,  and  returns 
to  the  home  where  his  voice  is  to  be  heard 
never  more.  That  aflliction  brings  forth  feel- 
ings unknown  before  in  his  heart;  calming  all 
turbulent  thoughts  by  the  settled  peace  of  the 
grave.  Then  every  page  of  the  Bible  is  beau- 
tiful— and  beautiful  every  verse  of  poetry  that 
thence  draws  its  inspiration.  Thus  in  the  pale 
and  almost  ghostlike  countenance  of  decay, our 
hearts  are  not  touched  by  the  remembrance 
alone  of  beauty  which  is  departed,  and  by  the 
near  extinction  of  loveliness  which  we  behold 
fading  before  our  eyes — but  a  beauty,  fairer 
and  deeper  far,  lies  around  the  hollow  eye  and 
the  sunken  cheek,  breathed  from  the  calm  air 
of  the  untroubled  spirit  that  has  heard  resigned 
the  voice  that  calls  it  away  from  the  dim  shades 
of  mortality.  Well  may  that  beauty  be  said  to 
be  religious;  for  in  it  speaks  the  soul,  con- 
scious, in  the  undreaded  dissolution  of  its 
earthly  frame,  of  a  being  destined  to  everlast- 
ing bliss.  With  every  deep  emotion  arising 
from  our  contemplation  of  such  beauty  as  this 
— religious  beauty  beaming  in  the  human  coun- 
tenance, whether  in  joy  or  sadness,  health  or 
decay — there  is  profoundly  interfused  a  sense 
of  the  soul's  spirituality,  which  silently  sheds 
over  the  emotion  something  celestial  and  di- 
vine, rendering  it  not  only  different  in  degree, 
but  altogether  distinct  in  kind,  from  all  the  feel- 
ings that  things  merely  perishable  can  inspire — 
so  that  the  spirit  is  fully  satisfied,  and  the  feel- 
ing of  beauty  is  but  a  vivid  recognition  of  its 
own  deathless  being  and  ethereal  essence.  This 
is  a  feeling  of  beauty  which  was  but  faintly 
known  to  the  human  heart  in  those  ages  of  the 
world  when  all  other  feelings  of  beauty  were 
most  perfect;  and  accordingly  we  find,  in  the 
most  pathetic  strains  of  their  elegiac  poetry, 
lamentations  over  the  beauty  intensely  wor- 
"hipped  in  the  dust,  which  was  to  lie  for  ever 
over  its  now  beamless  head.  But  to  the  Chris- 
tian who  may  have  seen  the  living  lustre  leave 
the  eye  of  some  beloved  friend,  there  must  have 
shone  a  beauty  in  his  latest  smile,  which  spoke 
not  alone  of  a  brief  scene  closed,  but  of  an  end- 
less scene  unfolding;  while  its  cessation,  in- 


stead of  leaving  him  in  utter  darkness,  seemed 
to  be  accompanied  with  a  burst  of  light. 

Much  of  our  most  fashionable  Modern 
Poetry  is  at  once  ludicrously  and  lamentably 
unsuitable  and  unseasonable  to  the  innocent 
and  youthful  creatures  who  shed  tears  "such 
as  angels  weep"  over  the  shameful  sins  of 
shameless  sinners,  crimes  which,  when  per- 
petrated out  of  Poetry,  and  by  persons  with 
vulgar  surnames,  elevate  their  respective  he- 
roes to  that  vulgar  altitude — the  gallows.  The 
darker — the  stronger  passions,  forsooth  !  And 
what  hast  thou  to  do — my  dove-eyed  Margaret 
— with  the  darker  and  stronger  passions'? 
Nothing  whatever  in  thy  sweet,  still,  serene, 
and  seemingly  almost  sinless  world.  Be  the 
brighter  and  the  weaker  passions  thine — 
brighter  ifldeed — yet  say  not  weaker,  for  they 
are  strong  as  death; — Love  and  Pity,  Awe  and 
Reverence, Joy, Grief,  and  Sorrow,  sunny  smiles 
and  showery  tears — be  these  all  thy  own — and 
sometimes,  too,  on  melancholy  nights,  let  the 
heaven  of  thy  imagination  be  spanned  in  its 
starriness  by  the  most  celestial  Evanescence — 
a  Lunar  Rainbow. 

There  is  such  perfect  sincerity  in  the  "  Chris- 
tian Year,"  such  perfect  sincerity,  and  conse- 
quently such  simplicity,  that  though  the  pro- 
duction of  a  fine  and  finished  scholar,  we  cannot 
doubt  that  it  will  some  day  or  other  find  its  way 
into  many  of  the  dwellings  of  humble  life. 
Such  descent,  if  descent  it  be,  must  be  of  all 
receptions  the  most  delightful  to  the  heart  of  a 
Christian  poet.  As  intelligence  spreads  more 
widely  over  the  land,  why  fear  that  it  will 
deaden  religion  1  Let  us  believe  that  it  will 
rather  vivify  and  quicken  it;  and  that  in  time 
true  poetry,  such  as  this,  of  a  character  some- 
what higher  than  probably  can  be  yet  felt,  un- 
derstood, and  appreciated  by  the  people,  will 
come  to  be  easy  and  familiar, and  blended  with 
all  the  other  benign  influences  breathed  over 
their  common  existence  by  books.  Meanwhile 
the  "Christian  Year"  will  be  finding  its  way 
into  many  houses  where  the  inmates  read  from 
the  lov^e  of  reading — not  for  mere  amusement 
only,  but  for  instruction  and  a  deeper  delight; 
and  we  shall  be  happy  if  our  recommendation 
causes  its  pages  to  be  illumined  by  the  gleams 
of  a  few  more  peaceful  hearths,  and  to  be  re- 
hearsed by  a  few  more  happy  voices  in  the 
"parlour  twilight." 

We  cannot  help  expressing  the  pleasure  it 
has  given  us  to  see  so  much  true  poetry  coming 
from  Oxford.  It  is  delightful  to  see  that  clas- 
sical literature,  which  sometimes,  we  know  not 
how,  certainly  has  a  chilling  effect  on  poetical 
feeling,  there  warming  it  as  it  ought  to  do,  and 
causing  it  to  produce  itself  in  song.  Oxford 
has  produced  many  true  poets;  Collins,  War- 
ton,  Bowles,  Heber,  Milman,  and  now  Keble — 
are  all  her  own — her  inspired  sons.  Their 
strains  are  not  steeped  in  "port  and  prejudice;" 
but  in  the — Isis.  Heaven  bless  Mey  and  God  • 
stow — and  many  another  sweet  old  ruined 
place — secluded,  but  not  far  apart  from  her 
own  inspiring  Sanctities.  And  those  who  .ov 
her  not,  never  may  the  Muses  love! 


200 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Ix  his  Poem,  entitled  "The  Omnipresence 
of  the  Deity,"  Mr.  Robert  Montgomer)'  writes 
thus : — 

"Lo!  there,  in  yonder  fancy-haunted  room. 
What  niutter'd  curses  trembled  through  the  gloom. 
When  pale,  and  shiv'ring,  and  bedew'd  with  fear. 
The  dyini,'  skeptic  felt  his  hour  drew  near'. 
From  his  parch'd  tongue  no  sainted  inuriiiurs  fell. 
No  bricht  hopes  kindled  at  his  faint  farewell  ; 
As  the  last  throes  of  death  convulsed  his  cheek, 
lie  gnash'd,  and  scowl'd,  and  raised  a  hideous  shriek. 
Rounded  his  eyes  into  a  ghastly  L'lare, 
Lock'd  his  white  lips — and  all  was  mute  despair! 
Go,  child  of  darkness,  see  a  Christian  die  ; 
No  horror  pales  his  lip,  or  rolls  his  eye  ; 
No  dreadful  doubts,  or  dreamy  terrors,  start 
The  hope  Religion  pillows  en  his  heart. 
When  with  a  dying  hand  he  waves  adieu 
To  all  who  love  so  well,  and  weep  so  true  : 
Meek,  as  an  infant  to  the  mother's  breast 
Turn.s  fondly  longing  for  its  wonted  rest. 
He  pants  for  where  congenial  spirits  stray. 
Turns  to  his  God,  and  sighs  liis  soul  away." 

First,  as  to  the  execution  of  this  passage. 
'•Fancy-haunted"  may  do,  but  it  is  not  a  sutii- 
ciently  strong  expression  for  the  occasion.  In 
every  such  picture  as  this,  we  demand  appro- 
priate vigour  in  every  word  intended  to  be 
vigorous,  and  which  is  important  to  the  effect 
of  tlie  whole. 

"From  his  parch'd  tongue  no  sainted  murmurs  fell. 
No  bright  hopes  kindled  at  his  faint  farewell." 

How  could  they] — The  line  but  one  before  is, 
"  What  niutter'd  curses  trembled  llirough  the  gloom." 
This,  then,  i.s  purely  ridiculous,  and  we  cannot 
doubt  that  Mr.  Monigoincry  will  confess  that  ii 
is  so;  but  independently  of  that,  he  is  describ- 
ing the  deaih-bed  of  a  person  who,  f.i-  Injiiolhcsi, 
could  have  no  bright  hopes,  could  breathe  no 
sainted  murmurs.  He  might  as  well,  in  a  de- 
scription of  a  negress,  have  told  us  that  she 
had  no  long,  smooth,  shining,  yellow  locks — 
no  light-blue  eyes — no  ruddy  and  rosy  cheeks 
— nor  yet  a  bosom  white  as  snow.  The  exe- 
cution of  the  picture  of  the  Christian  is  not 
much  better — it  is  too  much  to  use,  in  the 
sfense  here  given  to  them,  no  fewer  than  three 
verbs — "pales"  —  "rolls"  —  "starts,"  in  four 
lines. 

"The  hojie  Religion  pillows  on  the  heart," 
is  not  a  good  line,  and  it  is  a  borrowed  one. 

"When  with  a  dying  hand  he  waves  adieu," 

conveys  an  unnatural  image.  Dying  men  do 
not  act  so.  Not  thus  are  taken  eternal  fare- 
wells. The  motion  in  the  sea-song  was  more 
natural — 

"She  waved  adieu,  and  kiss'd  her  lily  hand." 

"Wcrps  so  true"  means  nothing,  nor  is  it 
English.  The  grammar  is  not  good  of, 
"  He  pants  for  where  congenial  spirits" — 
Neither  is  the  word  patits  by  any  means  the 
right  one;  and  in  such  an  awful  crisis,  admire 
who  may  the  simile  of  the  infant  longing  for 
its  mother's  breast,  we  never  can  in  its  present 
shape;  while  there  is  in  the  line, 

"  Turns  to  his  God,  and  sighs  his  soul  atcay ;" 

9  prettiness  we  very  much  dislike — alter  one 
rt'ord,  dnd  it  would  be  voluptuous — nor  do  we 
hesitate  to  call  the  passage  a  puling  one  alto- 


gether, and  such  as  ought  to  be  expunged 
froin  all  paper. 

But  that  is  not  all  we  have  to  say  against  it 
— it  is  radically  and  essentially  bad,  because  it 
either  proves  nothing  of  what  it  is  meant  to 
prove — or  what  no  human  being  on  earth  ever 
disputed.  Be  fair — be  just  in  all  that  concerns 
religion.  Take  the  best,  the  most  moral,  if  the 
word  can  be  used,  the  most  enlightened  Skep- 
tic, and  the  true  Christian,  and  compare  their 
death-beds.  That  of  the  Skeptic  will  be  dis- 
turbed or  disconsolate — that  of  the  Christian 
confiding  or  bussed.  But  lo  contrast  the 
death-bed  of  an  absolute  maniac,  muttering 
curses,  gnashins:  and  scowling,  and  "  raising  a 
hideous  shriek,"  and  "rounding  his  eyes  with 
a  ghastly  glare,"  aiul  convulsed,  too,  with  se- 
vere bodily  throes — with  that  of  a  convinced, 
confiding,  and  conscientious  Christian,  a  calm, 
meek,  undoubting  believer,  happy  in  the  "hope 
religion  pillows  on  his  heart,"  and  enduring  no 
fleshly  agonies,  can  serve  no  purpose  under 
the  sun.  .Men  who  have  ihe  misery  of  being 
unbelievers,  are  at  all  times  to  be  pitied — most 
of  all  in  their  last  hours;  but  though  theirs  be 
then  dim  melancholy,  or  dark  despair,  they  ex- 
press neither  the  one  state  nor  the  other  by 
mutlerings.  curses,  and  hideous  shrieks.  Such 
a  wretch  there  may  sometimes  be — like  him 
"who  died  and  made  no  sign ;"  but  there  is  no 
more  sense  in  seeking  to  brighten  the  charac- 
ter of  the  Christian  by  iu  contrast  with  that  of 
such  an  .\thdist,  than  by  contrast  with  a  fiend 
to  brighten  the  beauty  of  an  angel. 

Finally,  are  the  deathbeds  of  all  goud  Chris- 
tians so  calm  as  this — and  do  they  all  thus 
meekly 

"  Pant  for  where  congenial  spirits  stray," 

a  line,  besides  its  other  vice,  most  unscriptu- 
ral  ?  Congenial  spirit  is  not  the  language  of 
the  New  Testament.  Alas!  for  poor  weak 
human  nature  at  ihe  dying  hour!  Not  even 
can  the  Christian  always  then  retain  unquak- 
ing  trust  in  his  Saviour!  "This  is  the  blood 
that  was  shed  for  thee,"  are  words  whose  mys- 
tery quells  not  always  nature's  terror.  The 
Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  is  renewed  in 
vain — and  he  remembers,  in  doubt  and  dis- 
may, words  that,  if  misunderstood,  would  ap- 
pal all  the  Christian  world — "  My  God — my 
God — why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?"  Perhaps, 
before  the  Faith,  that  has  waxed  dim  and  died 
in  his  brain  distracted  by  pain,  and  disease, 
and  long  sleeplessness,  and  a  weight  of  wo— 
for  he  is  a  father  who  strove  in  vain  to  burst 
those  silken  ties,  that  winding  all  round  and 
about  his  very  soul  and  his  very  body,  bound 
him  to  those  dear  little  ones,  who  are  of  the 
same  spirit  and  ihe  same  flesh, — we  say,  be- 
fore that  Faith  could,  by  the  prayers  of  holy 
men,  be  restored  and  revivified,  and  the  Chris- 
tian, once  more  comforted  by  thinking  on  Him, 
who  for  all  human  beings  did  take  upon  him 
the  rueful  burden  and  agonies  of  the  Cross- 
Death  may  have  come  for  his  prey,  and  left 
the  chamber,  of  late  so  hushed  and  silent,  at 
full  liberty  to  weep!  Enough  to  know,  that 
though  Christianity  be  divine,  we  are  human, 
— that  the  vessel  is  weak  in  which  that  glori- 
ous light  may  be  enshrined — weak  as  the  pot- 


SACRED  POETRY. 


201 


ter's  clay — and  that  though  Christ  died  to  save 
sinners,  sinners  who  believe  in  Him,  and  there- 
fore shall  not  perish,  may  yet  lose  hold  of  the 
belief  when  their  understandings  are  darkened 
by  the  shadow  of  death,  and,  like  Peter  losing 
faith  and  sinking  in  the  sea,  feel  themselves 
descending  into  some  fearful  void,  and  cease 
hpre  to  be,  ere  they  find  voice  to  call  on  the 
name  of  the  Lord — "  Help,  or  I  perish  !" 

What  may  be  the  nature  of  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  an  Atheist,  either  when  in  great 
joy  or  great  sorrow,  full  of  life  and  the  spirit 
of  life,  or  in  mortal  malady  and  environed 
with  the  toils  of  death,  it  passes  the  power  of 
our  imagination  even  dimly  to  conceive;  nor 
are  we  convinced  that  there  ever  was  an  utter 
Atheist.  The  thought  of  a  God  will  enter  in, 
barred  though  the  doors  be,  both  of  the  under- 
standing and  the  heart,  and  all  the  windows 
supposed  to  be  blocked  up  against  the  light. 
The  soul,  blind  and  deaf  as  it  may  often  be, 
cannot  always  resist  the  intimations  all  life 
long,  day  and  night,  forced  upon  it  from  the 
outer  world ;  its  very  necessities,  nobler  far 
than  those  of  the  body,  even  when  most  de- 
graded, importunate  when  denied  their  manna, 
are  to  it  oftentimes  a  silent  or  a  loud  revela- 
tion. Then,  not  to  feel  and  think  as  other 
beings  do  with  "  discourse  of  reason,"  is  most 
hard  and  difficult  indeed,  even  for  a  short  time, 
and  on  occasions  of  very  inferior  moment. 
Being  men,  we  are  carried  away,  willing  or 
unwilling,  and  often  unconsciously,  by  the 
great  common  instinct;  we  keep  sailing  with 
the  tide  of  humanity,  whether  in  flow  or  ebb — 
fierce  as  demons  and  the  sons  of  perdition,Mf 
that  be  the  temper  of  the  congregating  hour — 
mild  and  meek  as  Pity,  or  the  new-born  babe, 
when  the  afflatus  of  some  divine  sympathy 
has  breathed  through  the  multitude,  nor  one 
creature  escaped  its  influence,  like  a  spring- 
day  that  steals  through  a  miirmuring  forest,  till 
not  a  single  tree,  even  in  the  darkest  nook,  is 
■without  some  touch  of  the  season's  sunshine. 
Think,  then,  of  one  who  would  fain  be  an 
Atheist,  conversing  with  the  "  sound,  healthy 
children  of  the  God  of  heaven  !"  To  this  rea- 
son, which  is  his  solitary  pride,  arguments 
might  in  vain  be  addressed,  for  he  exults  in 
being  "  an  Intellectual  All  in  All,"  and  is  a 
bold-browed  sophist  to  daunt  even  the  eyes  of 
Truth — eyes  which  can  indeed  "  outstare  the 
eagle"  when  their  ken  is  directed  to  heaven, 
but  which  are  turned  away  in  aversion  from 
the  human  countenance  that  would  dare  to 
deny  God.  Appeal  not  to  the  intellect  of  such 
a  man,  but  to  his  heart;  and  let  not  even  that 
appeal  be  conveyed  in  any  fixed  form  of  words 
— but  let  it  be  an  appeal  of  the  smiles  and  tears 
of  affectionate  and  loving  lips  and  eyes — of 
common  joys  and  common  griefs,  whose  con- 
tagion is  often  felt,  beyond  prevention  or  cure, 
where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together — 
among  families  thinly  sprinkled  over  the  wil- 
derness, where,  on  God's  own  day,  they  repair 
to  God's  own  house,  a  lowly  building  on  the 
brae,  which  the  Creator  of  suns  and  systems 
despiseth  not,  nor  yet  the  beatings  of  the  few 
contrite  hearts  therein  assembled  to  worship 
him — in  the  cathedral's  "long-dray^n  aisles 
and  fretted  vaults" — in  mighty  multitudes  all 
26 


crowded  in  silence,  as  beneath  the  shadow  of 
a  thunder-cloud,  to  see  some  one  single  human 
being  die — or  swaying  and  swinging  back 
wards  and  forwards,  and  to  and  fro,  to  hail  a 
victorious  armament  returning  from  the  war 
of  Liberty,  with  him  who  hath  "  taken  the 
start  of  this  majestic  world"  conspicuous  from 
afar  in  front,  encircled  with  music,  and  with 
the  standard  of  his  unconquered  country  afloat 
above  his  head.  Thus,  and  by  many  thousand 
other  potent  influences  for  ever  at  work,  and 
from  which  the  human  heart  can  never  make 
its  safe  escape — let  it  flee  to  the  uttermost  parts 
of  the  earth,  to  the  loneliest  of  the  multitude 
of  the  isles  of  the  sea — are  men,  who  vainly 
dream  that  they  are  Atheists,  forced  to  feel 
God.  Nor  happens  this  but  rarely — nor  are 
such  "anget-visits  few  and  far  between."  As 
the  most  cruel  have  often,  very  often,  thoughts 
tender  as  dew,  so  have  the  most  dark  often, 
very  often,  thoughts  bright  as  day.  The  sun's 
golden  finger  writes  the  name  of  God  on  the 
clouds,  rising  or  setting,  and  the  Atheist,  false- 
ly so  called,  starts  in  wonder  and  in  delight, 
which  his  soul,  because  it  is  immortal,  cannot 
resist,  to  behold  that  Bible  suddenly  opened 
before  his  eyes  on  the  sky.  Or  some  old, 
decrepit,  grayhaired  crone,  holds  out  her  shri- 
velled hand,  with  dim  eyes  patiently  fixed  on 
his,  silently  asking  charity — silently,  but  in  the 
holy  name  of  God;  and  the  Atheist,  taken  un- 
awares, at  the  very  core  of  his  heart  bids  "  God 
bless  her,"  as  he  relieves  her  uncomplaining 
miseries. 

If  then  Atheists  do  exist,  and  if  their  death- 
beds may  be  described  for  the  awful  or  melan- 
choly instruction  of  their  fellow-men,  let  them 
be  such  Atheists  as  those  whom,  let  us  not 
hesitate  to  say  it,  we  may  blamelessly  love 
with  a  troubled  affection;  for  our  Faith  may 
not  have  preserved  us  from  sins  from  which 
they  are  free — and  we  may  give  even  to  many 
of  the  qualities  of  their  most  imperfect  and 
unhappy  characters  almost  the  name  of  virtues. 
No  curses  on  their  death-beds  will  they  be 
heard  to  utter.  No  black  scowlings— no  horrid 
gnashing  of  teeth — no  hideous  shriekings  will 
there  appal  the  loving  ones  who  watch  and 
weep  by  the  side  of  him  who  is  dying  discon- 
solate. He  will  hope,  and  he  will  fear,  now 
that  there  is  a  God  indeed  everywhere  present 
— visible  now  in  the  tears  that  fall,  audible  now 
in  the  sighs  that  breathe  for  his  sake— in  the 
still  small  voice.  That  Being  forgets  not  those 
by  whom  he  has  been  forgotten ;  least  of  all, 
the  poor  "  Fool  who  has  said  in  his  heart  there 
is  no  God,"  and  who  knows  at  last  that  a  God 
there  is,  not  always  in  terror  and  trembling, 
but  as  often  perhaps  in  the  assurance  of  for- 
giveness, which  undeserved  by  the  best  of  the 
good,  may  not  be  withheld  even  from  the  worst 
of  the  bad,  if  the  thought  of  a  God  and  a  Sa- 
viour pass  but  for  a  moment  through  the  dark« 
ness  of  the  departing  spirit — like  a  dove  shoot- 
ing swiftly,  with  its  fair  plumage,  through  the 
deep  but  calm  darkness  that  follows  the  sub- 
sided storm. 

So,  too,  with   respect  to  Deists.     Of  unbe- 
lievers in  Christianity  there  are  many  kinds-  • 
the  reckless,  the  ignorant,  the  callous,  the  con 
firmed,  the  melancholy,  the  doubting,  the  de 


202 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


spairing — the  c;ood.  At  their  death-beds,  too, 
may  the  Christian  poet,  in  imagination,  take 
his  stand — and  there  may  he  even  hear 

"  The  still  sad  music  of  humanity, 
Not  harsh  iiorsratins,  liut  of  amplest  power 
To  soften  and  subdue  ;" 

Oftener  all  the  sounds  and  sights  there  will 
be  full  of  most  rueful  anguish;  and  that  an- 
guish will  groan  in  the  poet's  lays  when  his 
human  heart,  relieved  from  its  load  of  painful 
sympathies,  shall  long  afterwards  be  inspired 
with  the  pity  of  poetry,  and  sing  in  elegies, 
sublime  in  their  pathos,  the  sore  sufferings  and 
the  dim  distress  that  clouded  and  tore  the  dying 
spirit,  longing,  but  all  unable — profound  though 
its  longings  be — as  life's  daylight  is  about  to 
close  upon  that  awful  gloaming,  and  the  night 
of  death  to  descend  in  oblivion — to  believe  in 
the  Redeemer. 

Why  then  turn  but  to  such  death-bed,  if  in- 
deed religion,  and  not  superstition,  described 
that  scene — as  that  of  Voltaire  1  Or  even 
Rousseau,  whose  dying  eyes  sought,  in  the  last 
passion,  the  sight  of  the  green  earth,  and  the 
blue  skies,  and  the  sun  shining  so  brightly, 
when  all  within  the  brain  of  his  worshipper 
was  fast  growing  dimmer  and  more  dim — when 
all  the  unsatisfied  spirit,  that  scarcely  hoped  a 
future  life,  knew  not  how  it  could  ever  take 
farewell  of  the  present  with  tenderness  enough, 
and  enough  of  yearning  and  craving  after  its 
disappearing  beauty,  and  when  as  if  the  whole 
earth  were  at  that  moment  beloved  even  as  his 
small  peculiar  birthplace — 

"  Et  dulces  moriens  retniniscitur  Argos." 

The  Christian  poet,  in  his  humane  wisdom, 
will,  for  instruction's  sake  of  his  fellow-men, 
and  for  the  discovery  and  the  revealment  of 
ever-sacred  truth,  keep  aloof  from  such  death- 
beds as  these,  or  take  his  awful  stand  beside 
them  to  drop  the  pciplexed  and  pensive  tear. 
For  we  know  not  what  it  is  that  we  either  hear 
or  see;  and  holy  Conscience,  hearing  through 
a  confused  sound,  and  seeing  through  an  ob- 
scure light,  fears  to  condemn,  when  perhaps 
she  ought  only  to  pity — to  judge  another,  when 
perhaps  it  is  her  duty  but  to  use  that  inward 
eye  for  her  own  delinquencies.  He,  then,  who 
designs  to  benefit  his  kind  by  strains  of  high 
instruction,  will  turn  from  the  death-bed  of 
the  famous  Wit,  whose  brilliant  fancy  hath 
waxed  dim  as  that  of  the  clown — whose  ma- 
lignant heart  is  quaking  beneath  the  Power 
it  had  so  long  derided,  with  terrors  over  which 
his  hated  Christian  triumphs — and  whose  in- 
tellect, once  so  perspicacious  that  it  could  see 
but  too  well  the  motes  that  are  in  the  sun,  the 
specks  and  stains  that  are  on  the  flowing  robe 
of  nature  herself — prone,  in  miserable  contra- 
diction to  its  better  being,  to  turn  them  as 
proofs  against  the  power  and  goodness  of  the 
Holy  One  who  inhabiteth  eiernit}- — is  now  pal- 
sy-stricken as  that  of  an  idiot,  and  knows  not 
even  the  sound  of  the  name  of  its  once  vain 
and  proud  possessor — when  crowded  theatres 
liad  risen  up  with  one  rustle  to  honour,  and 
ihoj,  wun  deafening  acclamations, 
"  Raised  a  mortal  to  the  skies  !" 
There  he  is — it  matters  not  now  whether  on 


down  or  straw — stretched,  already  a  skeleton, 
and  gnashing — may  it  be  in  senselessness,  for 
otherwise  what  pangs  are  these  ! — gnashing  his 
teeth,  within  lips  once  so  eloquent,  now  white 
with  foam  and  slaver ;  and  the  whole  mouth, 
of  yore  so  musical,  grinning  ghastly,  like  the 
fleshless  face  of  fear-painted  death  !  Is  that 
Voltaire  1  He  who,  with  wit,  thought  to  shear 
the  Son  of  God  of  all  his  beams — with  wit,  to 
loosen  the  dreadful  fastenings  of  the  Cross? — 
with  wit,  to  scoff  at  Him  who  hung  thereon, 
while  the  blood  and  water  came  from  the  wound 
in  his  blessed  side  1 — with  wit  to  drive  away 
those  Shadows  of  Angels,  that  were  said  to 
have  rolled  off  the  stone  from  the  mouth  of  the 
sepulchre  of  the  resurrection  ? — with  wit,  to 
deride  the  ineffable  glory  of  transfigured  God- 
head on  the  Mount,  and  the  sweet  and  solemn 
semblance  of  the  Man  Jesus  in  the  garden  ? — 
with  wit,  to  darken  all  the  decrees  of  Provi- 
dence ? — and  with  wit, 

"To  shut  the  gates  of  Mercy  on  mankind  1" 
Nor  yet  will  the  Christian  poet  long  dwell  in 
his  religious  strains,  though  awhile  he  may 
linger  there,  "  and  from  his  eyelids  wipe  the 
tears  that  sacred  pity  hath  engendered,"  beside 
the  dying  couch  of  Jean  Jaques  Rousseau — a 
couch  of  turf  beneath  trees — for  he  was  ever  a 
lover  of  Nature,  though  he  loved  all  things 
living  or  dead  as  madmen  love.  His  soul, 
while  most  spiritual,  was  sensual  still,  and 
with  tendrils  of  flesh  and  blood  embraced — 
even  as  it  did  embrace  the  balm-breathing  form 
of  voluptuous  woman — the  very  phantoms  of 
his  most  etherealized  imagination.  Vice  stain- 
ed all  his  virtues — as  roses  are  seen,  in  some 
certain  soils,  and  beneath  some  certain  skies, 
always  to  be  blighted,  and  their  fairest  petals 
to  bear  on  them  something  like  blots  of  blood. 
Over  the  surface  of  the  mirror  of  his  mind, 
which  reflected  so  much  of  the  imagery  of  man 
and  nature,  there  was  still,  here  and  there,  on 
the  centre  or  round  the  edges,  rust-spots,  that 
gave  back  no  image,  and  marred  the  propor- 
tions of  the  beauty  and  the  grandeur  that  yet 
shone  over  the  rest  of  the  circle  set  in  the  rich 
carved  gold.  His  disturbed,  and  distracted,  and 
defeated  friendships,  that  all  vanished  in  insane 
suspicions,  and  seemed  to  leave  his  soul  as 
well  satisfied  in  its  fierce  or  gloomy  void,  as 
when  it  was  filled  with  airy  and  glittering  vi- 
sions, are  all  gone  for  ever  now.  Those  many 
thoughts  and  feelings — so  melancholy,  yet  still 
fair,  and  lovely,  and  beautiful — which,  like 
bright  birds  encaged,  with  ruffled  and  drooping 
wings,  once  so  apt  to  soar,  and  their  music 
mute,  that  used  to  make  the  wide  woods  to  ring, 
were  confined  within  the  wires  of  his  jealous 
heart — have  now  all  flown  away,  and  are  at 
rest !  Who  sits  beside  the  wild  and  wondrous 
genius,  whose  ravings  entranced  the  world  1 
who  wipes  the  death-sweat  from  that  capacious 
forehead,  once  filled  with  such  a  multitude  of 
disordered  but  aspiring  fancies  1  Who,  that 
his  beloved  air  of  heaven  may  kiss  and  cool  it 
for  the  last  lime,  lays  open  the  covering  that 
hides  the  marble  sallowness  of  Rousseau's 
sin-and-sorrow-haunted  breast?  One  of  Na- 
ture's least  gifted  children — to  whose  eyes  nor 
earth  nor  heaven  ever  beamed  with  beautv — 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


203 


to  whose  heart  were  known  but  the  meanest 
charities  of  nature;  yet  mean  as  they  were, 
how  much  better  in  such  an  hour,  than  all  his 
imaginings  most  magnificent!  For  had  he  not 
suffered  his  own  olTspring  to  pass  away  from 
his  eyes,  even  like  the  wood-shadows,  only  less 
beloved  and  less  regretted  ?  And  in  the  very 
midst  of  the  prodigality  of  love  and  passion, 
which  he  had  poured  ouloverthe  creations  of  his 
ever-distempered  fancy,  let  his  living  children, 
his  own  flesh  and  blood,  disappear  as  paupers 
in  a  chance-governed  world  1 — A  world  in 
which  neither  parental  nor  filial  love  were 
more  than  the  names  of  nonentities — Father, 
Son,  Daughter,  Child,  but  empty  syllables, 
which  philosophy  heeded  not — or  rather  loved 
them  in  their  emptiness,  but  despised,  hated, 
or  feared  them,  when  for  a  moment  they 
seemed  pregnant  with  a  meaning  from  heaven, 
and  each  in  its  holy  utterance  signifying 
God ! 


No  great  moral  or  religious  lesson  can  well 
be  drawn,  or  say  rather  so  well,  from  such 
anomalous  death-beds,  as  from  those  of  com- 
mon unbelievers.  To  show,  in  all  its  divine 
power,  the  blessedness  of  the  Christian's  faith, 
it  must  be  compared,  rather  than  contrasted, 
with  the  faith  of  the  best  and  wisest  of  Deists. 
The  ascendency  of  the  heavenly  over  the 
earthly  will  then  be  apparent — as  apparent  as 
the  superior  lustre  of  a  star  to  that  of  a  light- 
ed-up  window  in  the  night.  For  above  all 
other  things  in  which  the  Christian  is  happier 
than  the  Deist — with  the  latter,  the  life  beyond 
the  grave  is  but  a  dark  hope — to  the  former, 
"  immortality  has  been  brought  to  light  by  the 
Gospel."  That  difference  embraces  the  whole 
spirit.  It  may  be  less  felt — less  seen  when 
life  is  quick  and  strong:  for  this  earth  alone 
has  much  and  many  things  to  embrace  and 
enchain  our  being — but  in  death  the  difference 
is  as  between  night  and  day. 


CHEISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


FIRST  CANTICLE. 

Thk  present  Age,  which,  after  all,  is  a  very 
pretty  and  pleasant  one,  is  feelingly  alive  and 
widely  awake  to  the  manifold  delights  and  ad- 
vantages with  which  the  study  of  Natural 
History  swarms,  and  especially  that  branch  of 
it  which  unfolds  the  character  and  habits,  phy- 
sical, moral,  and  intellectual,  of  those  most  in- 
teresting and  admirable  creatures — Birds.  It 
is  familiar  not  only  with  the  shape  and  colour 
of  beak,  bill,  claw,  talon,  and  plume,  but  with 
the  purposes  for  which  they  are  designed,  and 
witli  the  instincts  which  guide  their  use  in  the 
beautiful  economy  of  all-gracious  Nature.  We 
remember  the  lime  when  the  very  word  Orni- 
thology would  have  required  interpretation  in 
mixed  company;  when  a  naturalist  was  looked 
on  as  a  sort  of  out-of-the-way  but  amiable 
monster.  Now,  one  seldom  meets  with  man, 
woman,  or  child,  who  does  not  know  a  hawk 
from  a  handsaw,  or  even,  to  adopt  the  more 
learned  reading,  from  a  heron-shew ;  a  black 
swan  is  no  longer  erroneously  considered  a 
rara  avis  any  more  than  a  black  sheep  ;  while 
the  Glasgow  Gander  hhnself,  no  longer  apocry- 
phal, has  taken  his  place  in  the  national  creed, 
belief  in  his  existence  being  merely  blended 
with  wonder  at  his  magnitude,  and  some  sur- 
prise perhaps  among  the  scientific,  that  he 
should  be  as  yet  the  sole  specimen  of  that 
enormous  Anser. 

The  chief  cause 'of  this  advancement  of 
knowledge  in  one  of  its  most  delightful  depart- 
ments, has  been  the  gradual  extension  of  its 
study  from  stale  books  written  by  men,  to  that 
book  ever  fresh  from  the  hand  of  God.  And 
the  second — another  yet  the  same — has  been 
the  gradual  change  wrought  by  a  philosophical 
spirit  in  the  observation,  delineation,  and  ar- 
rangement of  the  facts  and  laws  with  which 
the  science  is  conversant,  and  which  it  exhibits 


in  the  most  perfect  harmony  and  order.  Neo- 
phytes now  range  for  themselves,  according  to 
their  capacities  and  opportunities,  the  fields, 
woods,  rivers,  lakes,  and  seas  ;  and  proficients, 
no  longer  confining  themselves  to  mere 
nomenclature,  enrich  their  works  with  anec- 
dotes and  traits  of  character,  which,  without 
departure  from  truth,  have  imbued  bird-bio- 
graphy with  the  double  charm  of  reality  and 
romance. 

Compare  the  intensity  and  truth  of  any  na- 
tural knowledge  insensibly  acquired  by  ob- 
servation in  very  early  youth,  with  that  cor- 
responding to  it  picked  up  in  later  life  from 
books  !  In  fact,  the  habit  of  distinguishing 
ber^veen  things  as  different,  or  of  similar  forms, 
colours,  and  characters,  formed  in  infancy,  and 
childhood,  and  boyhood,  in  a  free  intercourse 
and  communion  with  Nature,  while  we  are 
merely  seeking  and  finding  the  divine  joy  of 
novelty  and  beauty,  perpetually  occurring  be- 
fore our  eyes  in  all  her  haunts,  may  be  made 
the  foundation  of  an  accuracy  of  judgment  of 
inappreciable  value  as  an  intellectual  endow- 
ment. So  entirely  is  this  true,  that  we  know 
many  observant  persons,  that  is,  observant  in 
all  things  intimately  related  with  their  own 
pursuits,  and  with  the  experience  of  their  own 
early  education,  Avho,  with  all  the  pains  they 
could  take  in  after-life,  have  never  been  able 
to  distinguish  by  name,  when  they  saw  them, 
above  half-a-dozen,  if  so  many,  of  our  British 
singing-birds ;  while  as  to  knowing  them  by 
their  song,  that  is  wholly  beyond  the  reach  of 
their  uninstructed  ear,  and  a  shilfa  chants  to 
them  like  a  yellow  yoldrin.  On  seeing  a  sm.iU 
bird  peeping  out  of  a  hole  m  the  eaves,  and 
especially  on  hearing  him  chatter,  they  shrewdly 
suspect  him  to  be  a  sparrow,  though  it  does 
not  by  any  means  follow  that  their  suspicions 
are  always  verified;  and  though,  when  sitting 
with   her  white   breast  so  lovely  out  of  the 


204 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


"auld  clay  biggin?;"  in  the  window-corner,  be 
cannot  mistake  Mistress  Swallow,  yet  when 
flitting  in  fly-search  over  the  stream,  and  ever 
and  anon  dipping  her  wing-tips  in  the  lucid 
coolness,  'tis  an  equal  chance  that  he  misnames 
her  Miss  Marten. 

What  constant  caution  is  necessarj'  daring 
the  naturalist's  perusal  even  of  the  verj'  best 
books  !  From  the  very  best  we  can  only  ob- 
tain knowledge  at  second-hand,  and  this,  like 
a  story  circulated  among  village  gossips,  is 
more  apt  to  gain  in  falsehood  than  in  truth,  as 
it  passes  from  one  to  another;  but  in  field 
study  we  go  at  once  to  the  fountain-head,  and 
ob'ain  our  facts  pure  and  unalloyed  by  the 
theories  and  opinions  of  previous  observers. 
Hence,  it  is  that  the  utility  of  books  becomes 
obvious.  Yon  witness  with  your  own  eyes 
some  puzzling,  perplexing,  strange,  and  un- 
accoimtable — fact ;  twenty  diflerent  statements 
of  it  have  been  given  by  twenty  diflerent  orni- 
thologists; you  consult  them  all,  and  getting  a 
hint  from  one,  and  a  hint  from  another,  here  a 
•glimmer  of  light  to  be  followed,  and  there  a 
gloom  of  darkness  to  be  avoided — why,  who 
knows  but  that  in  the  end  you  do  yourself 
solve  the  mystery,  and  absolutely  become  not 
only  happy  but  illustrious?  People  sitting  in 
their  own  parlour  with  their  feet  on  the  fender, 
or  in  the  sanctum  of  some  museum,  staring  at 
stufled  specimens,  imagine  themselves  natural- 
ists ;  and  in  their  presumptuous  and  insolent 
iiinnrance,  which  is  often  total,  scorn  the  wis- 
dom of  the  wanderers  of  the  woods,  who  have 
for  many  studious  and  solitary  years  been 
making  themselves  familiar  with  all  the  beauti- 
ful mysteries  of  instinctive  life.  Take  two 
boys,  and  set  them  respectively  to  pursue  the 
two  plans  of  study.  How  puzzled  and  per- 
plexed will  be  the  one  who  pores  over  the 
"interminable  terms"  of  a  system  in  books, 
having  meanwhile  no  access  to,  or  communion 
with  nature!  The  poor  wretch  is  to  be  pitied 
— nor  is  he  any  thing  else  than  a  slave.  But 
the  young  naturalist  who  takes  his  first  lessons 
in  the  fields,  observing  the  unrivalled  scene 
which  creation  everywhere  displays,  is  per- 
pelnally  studying  in  the  power  of  delight  and 
wonder,  and  laying  up  knowledge  which  can 
be  derived  from  no  other  source.  The  rich 
boy  is  to  be  envied,  nor  is  he  any  thing  else 
than  a  king.  The  one  sits  bewildered  among 
words,  the  other  walks  enlightened  among 
things;  the  one  has  not  even  the  shadow, 
the  other  more  than  the  substance — the  very 
essence  and  life  of  knowledge;  and  at  twelve 
years  old  he  may  be  a  better  naturalist  than 
ever  the  mere  bookworm  will  be,  were  he  to 
outlive  old  Tommy  Balmer. 

In  education — late  or  early — for  heaven's 
sake  Ici  us  never  separate  things  and  words  ! 
They  are  married  in  nature  ;  and  what  God 
hath  put  together  let  no  man  put  asunder — 'tis 
a  fatal  divorce.  Without  things,  words  ac- 
cumulated by  misery  in  the  memory,  had  far 
better  die  than  drag  out  an  useless  existence  in 
the  dark;  without  words,  their  stay  and  sup- 
port, things  unaccountably  disappear  out  of 
the  storehouse,  and  may  be  for  ever  lost.  But 
bind  a  thing  with  a  word,  a  strange  link, 
stronger  than  any  steel,  and  softer  than  any 


silk,  and  the  captive  remains  for  ever  happy 
in  its  bright  prison-house.  On  this  principle, 
it  is  indeed  surprising  at  how  early  an  age 
children  can  be  instructed  in  the  most  interest- 
ing parts  of  natural  history — ay,  even  a  babe 
in  arms.  Remember  Coleridge's  beautiful  lines 
to  the  Nightingale : — 

"That  strain  again ! 
Full  fain  it  would  delay  me  !    My  dear  babe, 
Who,  capable  of  no  articulate  sound. 
Mars  all  thines  with  his  imitative  lisp. 
How  he  would  plare  his  hand  beside  his  ear, 
His  little  hand,  the  small  Torednger  up. 
And  bid  ns  listen!  and  I Arrm  it  wist 
To  make  him  ^uluTc't  child.^' 

How  we  come  to  K  re  the  Birds  of  Bewick, 
and  White,  and  the  two  Wilsons,  and  Montagu, 
and  Mudie,  and  Knapp,  and  Selby,  and  Swain- 
son,  and  Audubon,  and  many  others  familiar 
with  their  haunts  and  habits,  their  aflections 
and  their  passions,  till  we  feel  that  they  are 
indeed  our  fellow-creatures,  and  part  of  one 
wise  and  wonderful  system!  If  there  be  ser- 
mons in  stones,  what  think  ye  of  the  hymns 
and  psalms,  matin  and  vesper,  of  the  lark,  who 
at  heaven's  gate  sings— of  the  wren,  who  pipes 
her  thanksgivings  as  the  slant  sunbeam  shoots 
athwart  the  mossy  portal  of  cave,  in  whose 
fretted  roof  she  builds  her  nest  above  the  water- 
fall !  In  cave-roof?  Yea — we  have  seen  it  so 
— just  beneath  the  cornice.  But  most  frequent- 
ly we  have  detected  her  procreanl  cradle  on 
old  mossy  stump,  mouldering  walls  or  living 
rock — sometimes  in  cleft  of  yew-tree  or  haw- 
thorn— for  hang  the  globe  with  its  impercepti- 
ble orifice  in  the  sunshine  or  the  storm,  and 
St.  Catharine  sits  within  heedless  of  the  outer 
world,  counting  her  beads  with  her  sensitive 
breast  that  broods  in  bliss  over  the  priceless 
pearls. 

Ay,  the  men  we  have  named,  and  many 
other  blameless  idolaters  of  Nature,  have  wor- 
shipped her  in  a  truly  religious  spirit,  and  have 
taught  us  their  religion.  All  our  great  poets 
have  loved  the  Miuncsiugcis  of  the  woods — 
Thomson,  and  Cowper,  and  Wordsworth,  as 
dearly  as  Spenser,  and  Shakspeare,  and  Milton. 
From  the  inarticulate  language  of  the  groves, 
they  have  inhaled  the  enthusiasm  that  inspired 
some  of  the  finest  of  their  own  immortal 
strains.  "Lonely  wanderer  of  Nature"  must 
every  poet  be — and  though  often  self-wrapt  his 
wanderings  through  a  spiritual  world  of  his 
own.  yet  as  some  fair  flower  silently  asks  his 
eye  to  look  on  it,  some  glad  bird  his  ear  solicits 
with  a  song,  how  intense  is  then  his  percep- 
tion— his  emotion  how  profound — while  his 
spirit  is  thus  appealed  to,  through  all  its  hu- 
man sensibilities,  by  the  beauty  and  the  joy 
perpetual  even  in  the  most  solitarj'  places  ! 

Our  moral  being  owes  deep  obligation  to  all 
who  assist  us  to  study  nature  aright;  for  be- 
lieve us,  it  is  high  and  rare  knowledge  to  know 
and  to  have  the  true  and  full  use  of  our  eyes. 
Millions  go  to  the  grave  in  old  age  without  ever 
having  learned  it;  they  were  just  beginning, 
perhaps,  to  acquire  it,  when  they  sighed  lo  think 
that  "they  who  look  out  of  the  windows  were 
darkened ;"  and  that  while  they  had  been  in- 
structed how  to  look,  sad  shadows  had  fallen 
on  the  whole  face  of  Nature,  and  that  the  time 
for  those  intuitions  was  gone  for  ever.     But  the 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


205 


science  of  seeing  has  now  found  favour  in  our 
eyes  ;  and  blessings  be  with  them  who  can  dis- 
cover, discern,  and  describe  the  least  as  the 
greatest  of  nature's  works — who  can  see  as 
distinctly  the  finger  of  God  in  the  lustre  of  the 
humming-bird  murmuring  round  a  rose-bush, 
as  in  that  of  the  star  of  Jove  shining  sole  in 
heaven. 

Take  up  now  almost  any  book  you  may  on 
any  branch  of  Natural  History,  and  instead  of 
the  endless,  dry  details  of  imaginary  systems 
and  classifications,  in  which  the  ludicrous  lit- 
tlenesses of  man's  vain  ingenuity  used  to  be 
set  up  as  a  sort  of  symbolical  scheme  of  reve- 
lation of  the  sublime  varieties  of  the  inferior — 
as  we  choose  to  call  it — creation  of  God,  you 
find  high  attempts  in  an  humble  spirit  rather  to 
illustrate  tendencies  and  uses,  and  harmonies, 
and  order,  and  design.  With  some  glorious 
exceptions,  indeed,  the  naturalists  of  the  day 
gone  by  showed  us  a  science  that  was  but  a 
skeleton — little  but  dry  bones;  with  some  in- 
glorious exceptions,  indeed,  the  naturalists  of 
the  day  that  is  now,  have  been  desirous  to  show 
us  a  living,  breathing,  and  moving  body — to 
explain,  as  far  as  they  might,  its  mechanism 
and  its  spirit.  Ere  another  century  elapse, 
how  familiar  may  men  be  with  all  the  families 
of  the  flowers  of  the  field,  and  the  birds  of  the 
air,  with  all  the  interdependencies  of  their  cha- 
racters and  their  kindreds,  perhaps  even  with 
the  mystery  of  that  instinct  which  is  now  seen 
working  wonders,  not  only  bej-ond  the  power 
of  reason  to  comprehend,  but  of  imagination  to 
conceive ! 

How  deeply  enshrouded  are  felt  to  be  the 
mysteries  of  nature,  when,  thousands  of  years 
after  Aristotle,  we  hear  Audubon  confess  his 
titter  ignorance  of  what  migrations  and  non- 
migrations  mean — that  'tis  hard  to  understand 
why  such  general  laws  as  these  should  be — 
though  their  benign  operation  is  beautifully 
seen  in  the  happiness  provided  alike  for  all — 
whether  they  reside  in  their  own  comparative!)' 
small  localities,  nor  ever  wish  to  leave  them — 
or  at  stated  seasons  instinctively  fly  away  over 
thousands  of  miles,  to  drop  down  and  settle  for 
a  while  on  some  spot  adapted  to  their  necessi- 
ties, of  which  they  had  prescience  afar  06", 
though  seemingly  wafted  thither  like  leaves 
upon  the  wind  !  Verily,  as  great  a  mystery  is 
that  Natural  Religion  by  the  theist  studied  in 
woods  and  on  mountains  and  by  sea-shores,  as 
that  Revelation  which  philosophers  will  not 
believe  because  they  do  not  understand — "  the 
blinded  bigot's  scorn"  deriding  man's  highest 
and  holiest  happiness — Faith  ! 

We  must  not  now  go  a  bird-nesting,  but  the 
first  time  we  do  we  shall  put  Bishop  Maht's 
"Months"  in  our  pocket.  "The  good  Bishop — 
who  must  have  been  an  indefatigable  bird- 
nester  in  his  boyhood — though  we  answer  for 
him  that  he  never  stole  but  one  egg  out  of  four, 
and  left  undisturbed  the  callow  young — treats 
of  those  beauteous  and  wondrous  structures  in 
a  style  that  might  make  Professor  Rennie  jea- 
lous, who  has  written  like  a  Vitruvius  on  the 
architecture  of  birds.  He  expatiates  with  un- 
controlled delight  on  the  unwearied  activity  of 
the  architects,  who,  without  any  apprenticeship 
to  the  trade,  are  journeymen,  nay,  master- 


builders,  the  first  spring  of  their  full-fledged* 
lives  ;  with  no  other  tools  but  a  bill,  unless  we 
count  their  claws,  which  however  seem,  and 
that  only  in  some  kinds,  to  be  used  but  in 
carrying  materials.  With  their  breasts  and 
whole  bodies,  indeed,  most  of  them  round  off 
the  soft  insides  of  their  procreant  cradles,  till 
they  fit  each  brooding  bunch  of  feathers  to  a 
hair's-breadth,  as  it  sits  close  and  low  on  eo-o-s 
or  eyeless  young,  a  Icelle  higher  raised  up  above 
their  gaping  babies,  as  they  wax  from  downy 
infancy  into  plumier  childhood,  which  they  do 
how  swiftly,  and  how  soon  have  they  flown  ! 
You  look  some  sunny  morning  into  the  bush, 
and  the  abode  in  which  the)'  seemed  so  cozcy 
the  day  before  is  utterly  forsaken  by  the  joy- 
ous ingrates — now  feebly  fluttering  in  the  nar- 
row grove,  to  them  a  wide  world  filled  with 
delight  and  wonder — to  be  thought  of  never 
more.  With  all  the  various  materials  used  by 
them  in  building  their  different  domiciles,  the 
Bishop  is  as  familiar  as  with  the  sole  material 
of  his  own  wig — though,  by  the  by,  last  time 
we  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  and  sitting  by 
him,  he  wore  his  own  hair — "  but  that  not 
much ;"  for,  like  our  own,  his  sconce  was 
bald,  and,  like  it,  showed  the  organ  of  con- 
strucliveness  as  fully  developed  as  Christopher 
or  a  Chaffinch.  He  is  perfectly  well  acquaint- 
ed, too,  with  all  the  diversities  of  their  modes 
of  building — their  orders  of  architecture — and 
eke  with  all  those  of  situation  chosen  by  the 
kinds — whether  seemingly  simple,  in  cunning 
that  deceives  by  a  show  of  carelessness  and 
heedlessness  of  notice,  or  with  craft  of  conceal- 
ment that  baffles  the  most  searching  eye — 
hanging  their  beloved  secret  in  gloom  not  im- 
pervious to  sun  and  air — or,  trustful  in  man's 
love  of  his  own  home,  aflfixing  the  nest  beneath 
the  eaves,  or  in  the  flowers  of  the  lattice,  kept 
shut  for  their  sakes,  or  half-opened  by  fair 
hands  of  virgins  whose  eyes  gladden  with 
heartborn  brightness  as  each  morning  they 
mark  the  growing  beauty  of  the  brood,  till  they 
smile  to  see  one  almost  as  large  as  its  parents 
sitting  on  the  rim  of  the  nest,  when  all  at  once 
it  hops  over,  and,  as  it  flutters  away  like  a  leaf, 
seems  surprised  that  it  can  fly  ' 

Yet  there  are  still  a  fe\^f  wretched  quacks 
among  us  whom  we  may  some  day  perhaps 
drive  down  into  the  dirt.  There  are  idiots 
who  Avill  not  even  suffer  sheep,  cows,  horses, 
and  dogs,  to  escape  the  disgusting  perversions 
of  their  anile  anecdotage — who,  by  all  manner 
of  drivelling  lies,  libel  even  the  common  do- 
mestic fowl,  and  impair  the  reputation  of  the 
bantam.  Newspapers  are  sometimes  so  in 
fested  by  the  trivial  trash,  that  in  the  nostrils 
of  a  naturalist  they  smell  on  the  breakfast 
table  like  rotten  eggs  ;  and  there  are  absolutely 
volumes  of  the  slaver  bound  in  linen,  and  let- 
tered with  the  names  of  the  expectorators  on 
the  outside,  resembling  annuals — we  almost 
fear  with  prints.  In  such  hands,  the  ass  loses 
his  natural  attributes,  and  takes  the  character 
of  his  owner ;  and  as  the  anecdote-monger  is 
seen  astride  on  his  cuddy,  you  wonder  what 
may  be  the  meaning  of  the  apparition,  for  we 
defy  you  to  distinguish  the  one  donk  from  ths 
other,  the  rider  from  the  ridden,  except  by  the 
more  inexpressive  countenance  of  the  one,  and 
S 


206 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


the  ears  of  the  other  in  uncomputed  longitude 
dangling  or  erect. 

We  can  bear  this  libellous  gossip  least  pa- 
tiently of  all  with  birds.  If  a  ninny  have  some 
stories  about  a  wonderful  goose,  let  him  out 
with  them,  and  then  waddle  away  with  his  fat 
friend  into  the  stackyard — where  they  may 
take  sweet  counsel  together  in  the  "  fause- 
house."  Let  hiin,  with  open  mouth  and  grozet 
eyes,  say  what  he  chooses  of"  Pretty  Poll,"  as 
she  clings  in  her  cage,  by  beak  or  claws,  to 
stick  or  wire,  and  in  her  naughty  vocabulary 
let  him  hear  the  impassioned  eloquence  of  an 
Aspasia  inspiring  a  Pericles.  But,  unless  his 
crown  itch  for  the  Crutch,  let  him  spare  the 
linnet  on  the  briery  bush  among  the  broom — 
the  laverock  on  the  dewy  braird  or  in  the  rosy 
cloud — the  swan  on  her  shadow — the  eagle  in 
his  eyrie,  in  the  sun,  or  at  sea. 

The  great  ornithologists  and  the  true  are  the 
authorities  that  are  constantly  correcting  those 
errors  of  popular  opinion  about  the  fowls  of 
the  air,  which  in  every  country,  contrary  to 
the  evidence  of  the  senses,  and  in  spite  of  ob- 
servations that  may  be  familiar  to  all,  gain 
credence  with  the  weak  and  ignorant,  and  in 
process  of  time  compose  even  a  sort  of  system 
of  the  vilest  superstition.  It  would  be  a  very 
curious  inquiry  to  trace  the  operation  of  the 
causes  that,  in  different  lands,  have  produced 
with  respect  to  birds  national  prejudices  of 
admiration  or  contempt,  love  or  even  hatred ; 
and  in  doing  so,  we  should  have  to  open  up 
some  strange  views  of  the  influence  of  ima- 
gination on  the  head  and  heart.  It  may  be 
remarked  that  an  excuse  will  be  generally 
found  for  such  fallacies  in  the  very  sources 
from  which  they  spring;  but  no  excuse  can 
bo  found — on  the  contrary,  in  every  sentence 
the  fool  scribbles,  a  glaring  argument  is  shown 
in  favour  of  hi.>  being  put  to  a  lingering  and 
cruel  death — the  fool  who  keeps  gossiping 
every  week  in  the  year,  penny-a-line-wise, 
with  a  gawky  face  and  a  mawkish  mind, 
about  God's  creatures  to  whom  reason  has 
been  denied,  but  instinct  given,  in  order  that 
they  may  be  happy  on  moor  and  mountain,  in 
the  hedge-roots  and  on  the  fops  of  heaven- 
kissing  trees — by<he  side  of  rills  whose  sweet 
low  voice  gives  no  echo  in  the  wild,  and  on 
the  hollow  thunder  of  seas  on  which  they  sit 
in  safety  around  the  sinking  ship,  or  from  all 
her  shrieks  flee  away  to  some  island  and  are 
at  rest. 

Turn  to  the  true  Ornithologist,  and  how 
beautiful,  each  in  the  adaptation  of  its  own 
structure  to  its  own  life,  every  bird  that  walks 
the  land,  wades  the  water,  or  skims  the  air ! 
In  his  pages,  pictured  by  pen  or  pencil,  all  is 
wondrous — as  nature  ever  is  to 

"The  quiet  eye 
TTiat  broods  and  sleeps  on  its  own  heart," 

even  while  gazing  on  the  inferior  creatures 
of  that  creation  to  which  we  belong,  and  are 
linked  in  being's  mysterious  chain — till  our 
breath,  like  theirs,  expire.  All  is  wondrous 
—but  nothing  monstrous  in  his  delineations — 
for  the  more  we  know  of  nature  in  her  infinite 
varieties,  her  laws  reveal  themselves  to  us  in 
more  majestic  simplicity,  and  we  are  inspired 


with  awe,  solemn  but  sweet,  by  the  incompre- 
hensible, yet  in  part  comprehended,  magnifi- 
cence of  Truth.  The  writings  of  such  men 
are  the  gospel  of  nature — and  if  e  apocrypha 
be  bound  up  along  with  it — 'tis  well ;  for  in 
it,  too,  there  is  felt  to  be  inspiration — and 
when,  in  good  time,  purified  from  error,  the 
leaves  all  make  but  one  Bible. 

Hark  to  the  loud,  clear,  mellow,  bold  song 
of  the  Blackbiiid.  There  he  flits  along  upon 
a  strong  wing,  with  his  yellow  bill  visible  in 
distance,  and  disappears  in  the  silent  wood. 
Not  long  silent.  It  is  a  spring-day  in  our 
imagination — his  clay-wall  nest  holds  his  mate 
at  the  foot  of  the  Silver-fir,  and  he  is  now 
perched  on  its  pinnacle.  That  thrilling  hymn 
will  go  vibrating  down  the  stem  till  it  reaches 
her  brooding  breast.  The  whole  vernal  air  is 
filled  with  the  murmur  anr^  the  glitter  of  in- 
sects; but  the  blackbird's  song  is  over  all 
other  symptoms  of  love  and  life,  and  seems  to 
call  upon  the  leaves  to  unfold  into  happiness. 
It  is  on  that  one  Tree-top.  conspicuous  among 
many  thousands  on  the  fine  breast  of  wood — 
here  and  there,  a  pine  mingling  not  unmeetly 
with  the  prevailing  oak — that  the  forest-min- 
strel sits  in  his  inspirations.  The  rock  above 
is  one  which  we  have  often  climbed.  There 
lies  the  glorious  Loch  and  all  its  islands — one 
dearer  than  the  rest  to  eye  and  imagination, 
with  its  old  Religious  House — year  after  year 
crumbling  away  unheeded  into  more  entire 
ruin.  Far  away,  a  sea  of  mountains,  with  all 
their  billowing  summits  distinct  in  the  sky,  and 
now  uncertain  and  changeful  as  the  clouds. 
Yonder  Castle  stands  well  on  the  peninsula 
among  the  trees  which  the  herons  inhabit. 
Those  coppice-woods  on  the  other  shore,  steal- 
ing up  to  the  heathery  rocks  and  sprinkled 
birches,  are  the  haunts  of  the  roe.  That  great 
glen,  that  stretches  sullenly  away  into  the  dis- 
tant darkness,  has  been  for  ages  the  birth  and 
the  death-place  of  the  red-deer.  The  cry  of 
an  Eagle  !  There  he  hangs  poised  in  the  sun- 
light, and  now  he  flies  off  towards  the  sea. 
But  again  the  song  of  our  Blackbihd  rises 
like  "a  steam  of  rich  distilled  perfumes,"  and 
our  heart  comes  back  to  him  upon  the  pinna- 
cle of  his  own  Home-tree.  The  source  of 
song  is  yet  in  the  happy  creature's  heart — but 
the  song  itself  has  subsided,  like  a  rivulet  that 
has  been  rejoicing  in  a  sudden  shower  among 
the  hills ;  the  bird  drops  down  among  the 
balmy  branches,  and  the  other  faint  songs 
which  that  bold  anthem  had  drowned,  are 
heard  at  a  distance,  and  seem  to  encroach 
every  moment  on  the  silence. 

You  say  you  greatly  prefer  the  song  of  the 
TiinvsH.  Pray,  why  set  such  delightful  sing- 
ers by  the  ears  1  We  dislike  the  habit  that 
ven,'  many  people  have  of  trying  every  thing 
by  a  scale.  Nothing  seems  to  them  to  be 
good  positively — only  relatively.  Now,  it  is 
true  wisdom  to  be  charmed  with  what  is  charm- 
ing, to  live  in  it  for  the  time  being,  and  compare 
the  emotion  with  no  former  emotion  whatever — 
unless  it  be  unconsciously  in  the  working  of 
an  imagination  set  agoing  by  delight.  Al- 
though, therefore,  we  cannot  say  that  we  pre- 
fer the  Thrush  to  the  Blackbird,  yet  we  agree 
with  vou  in  thinking  him  a  most  delightful 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


207 


bird.  Where  a  Thrush  is,  we  defy  you  to  an- 
ticipate his  song  in  the  morning.  He  is  in- 
deed an  early  riser.  By  the  way,  Chanticleer 
is  far  from  being  so.  You  hear  him  crowing 
away  from  shortly  after  midnight,  and,  in  your 
simplicity,  may  suppose  him  to  be  up  and 
strutting  about  the  premises.  Far  from  it; — 
he  is  at  that  very  moment  perched  in  his 
polygamy,  between  two  of  his  fattest  ■wives. 
The  sultan  will  perhaps  not  stir  a  foot  for 
several  hours  to  come ;  while  all  the  time  the 
Thrush,  having  long  ago  rubbed  his  eyes,  is 
on  his  topmast  twig,  broad  awake,  and  charm- 
ing the  car  of  dawn  with  his  beautiful  vocifera- 
tion. During  mid-day  he  disappears,  and  is 
mute  ;  but  again,  at  dewy  even,  as  at  dewy 
morn,  he  pours  his  pipe  like  a  prodigal,  nor 
ceases  sometimes  when  night  has  brought  the 
moon  and  stars. 

Best  beloved,  and  most  beautiful  of  all 
Thrushes  that  ever  broke  from  the  blue-spot- 
ted shell ! — thou  who,  for  five  springs,  hast 
"hung  thy  procreant  cradle"  among  the  roses 
and  honeysuckles,  and  ivy,  and  clematis  that 
embower  in  bloom  the  lattice  of  our  Cottage- 
study — how  farest  thou  now  in  the  snow  ?  Con- 
sider the  whole  place  as  your  own,  my  dear 
bird  ;  and  remember,  that  when  the  gardener's 
children  sprinkle  food  for  you  and  yours  all 
along  your  favourite  haunts,  that  it  is  done  by 
our  orders.  And  when  all  the  earth  is  green 
again,  and  all  the  sky  blue,  you  will  welcome 
us  to  our  rural  domicile,  with  light  feet  run- 
ning before  us  among  the  winter  leaves,  and 
then  skim  away  to  your  new  nest  in  the  old 
spot,  then  about  to  be  somewhat  more  cheerful 
in  the  undisturbing  din  of  the  human  life  with- 
in the  flowery  walls. 

Nay — how  can  we  forget  what  is  for  ever 
before  our  eyes!  Blessed  be  Thou — on  thy 
shadowy  bed,  belonging  equally  to  earth  and 
heaven — O  Isle  !  who  art  called  the  Beautiful ! 
and  who  of  thyself  canst  make  all  the  Lake 
one  floating  Paradise — even  were  her  shore- 
hills  silvan  no  more — groveless  the  bases  of  all 
her  remoter  mountains — effaced  that  loveliest 
splendour,  sun-painted  on  their  sky-piercing 
cliffs.  And  can  it  be  that  we  have  forsaken 
Thee  !  Fairy-land  and  Love-land  of  our  youth ! 
Hath  imagination  left  our  brain,  and  passion 
our  heart,  so  that  we  can  bear  banishment 
from  Thee  and  yet  endure  life  !  Such  loss  not 
yet  is  ours — witness  these  gushing  tears.  But 
Duty,  "  stern  daughter  of  the  voice  of  God," 
dooms  us  to  breathe  our  morning  and  evening 
orisons  far  from  hearing  and  sight  of  Thee, 
■whose  music  and  whose  light  continue  glad- 
dening other  ears  and  other  eyes — as  if  ours 
had  there  never  listened — and  never  gazed. 
As  if  thy  worshipper — and  sun  !  moon  !  and 
stars  !  he  asks  ye  if  he  loved  not  you  and  your 
images — as  if  thy  worshipper — 0  Windermere ! 
were — dead  !  And  does  duty  dispense  no  re- 
ward to  them  who  sacrifice  at  her  bidding  what 
was  once  the  very  soul  of  life  ]  Yes  !  an  ex- 
ceeding great  reward — ample  as  the  heart's 
desire — for  contentment  is  born  of  obedience 
— where  no  repinings  are,  the  wings  of  thought 
are  imped  beyond  the  power  of  the  eagle's 
plumes;  and  happy  are  we  now — with  the  hu- 
man smiles  and  voices  we  love  even  more  than 


thine,  thou  fairest  region  of  nature!  happier 
than  when  we  rippled  in  our  pinnace  through 
the  billowy  moonlight — than  when  we  sat  alone 
on  the  mountain  within  the  thunder-cloud. 

Why  do  the  songs  of  the  Blackbird  and 
Thrush  make  us  think  of  the  songless  Star- 
ling ]  It  matters  not.  We  do  think  of  him,  and 
see  him  too — a  loveable  bird,  and  his  abode  is 
majestic.  What  an  object  of  wonder  and  awe  is 
an  old  Castle  to  a  boyish  imagination !  Its  height 
how  dreadful !  up  to  whose  mouldering  edges 
his  fear  carries  him,  and  hangs  him  over  the 
battlements !  What  beauty  in  those  unapproach- 
able wall-flowers,  that  cast  a  brightness  on  the 
old  brown  stones  of  the  edifice,  and  make  the 
horror  pleasing]  That  sound  so  far  below,  is 
the  sound  of  a  stream  the  eye  cannot  reach — 
of  a  waterfall  echoing  forever  among  the  black 
rocks  and  pools.  The  school-boy  knows  but 
little  of  the  history  of  the  old  Castle — but  that 
little  is  of  war,  and  witchcraft,  and  imprison- 
ment, and  bloodshed.  The  ghostly  glimmer 
of  antiquity  appals  him — he  visits  the  ruin 
only  with  a  companion,  and  at  mid-day.  There 
and  then  it  was  that  we  first  saw  a  Starling. 
We  heard  something  wild  and  wonderful  in 
their  harsh  scream,  as  they  sat  upon  the  edge 
of  the  battlements,  or  flew  out  of  the  chinks 
and  crannies.  There  were  Martens  too,  sa 
different  in  their  looks  from  the  pretty  House- 
Swallows — Jack-daws  clamouring  afresh  at 
every  time  we  waved  our  caps,  or  vainly 
slung  a  pebble  towards  their  nests — and  one 
grove  of  elms,  to  whose  top,  much  lower  than 
the  castle,  came,  ever  and  anon,  some  noiseless 
Heron  from  the  Muirs. 

Ruins  !  Among  all  the  external  objects  of 
imagination,  surely  they  are  most  affecting  ! 
Some  sumptuous  edifice  of  a  former  age,  still 
standing  in  its  undecayed  strength,  has  un- 
doubtedly a  great  command  over  us,  from  the 
ages  that  have  flowed  over  it ;  but  the  moul- 
dering edifice  which  Nature  has  begun  to  win 
to  herself,  and  to  dissolve  into  her  own  bosom, 
is  far  more  touching  to  the  heart,  and  more 
awakening  to  the  spirit.  It  is  beautiful  in  its 
decay — not  merely  because  green  leaves,  and 
wild  flowers,  and  creeping  mosses  soften  its 
rugged  frowns,  but  because  they  have  sown 
themselves  on  the  decay  of  greatness  ;  they  are 
monitors  to  our  fancy,  like  the  flowers  on  a 
grave,  of  the  untroubled  rest  of  the  dead.  Bat- 
tlements riven  by  the  hand  of  time,  and  clois- 
tered arches  reft  and  rent,  speak  to  us  of  the 
warfare  and  of  the  piety  of  our  ancestors,  of 
the  pride  of  their  might,  and  the  consolations 
of  their  sorrow :  they  revive  dim  shadows  of 
departed  life,  evoked  from  the  land  of  forget- 
fulness ;  but  they  touch  us  more  deeply  when 
the  brightness  which  the  sun  flings  on -the 
broken  arches,  and  the  warbling  of  birds  that 
are  nestled  in  the  chambers  of  princes,  and  the 
moaning  of  winds  through  the  crevices  of 
towers,  round  which  the  surges  of  war  were 
shattered  and  driven  back,  lay  those  phantoms 
again  to  test  in  their  silent  bed,  and  show  us, 
in  the  monviments  of  human  life  and  power, 
the  visible  footsteps  of  Time  and  Oblivion 
coming  on  in  their  everlasting  and  irresistible 
career,  to  sweep  down  our  perishable  race, 
and  to  reduce  all  the  forms  of  our  momentary 


208 


KECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


being  into  the  undistinguishable  elements  of 
their  original  nothing. 

What  is  there  below  the  skies  like  the  place 
of  mighty  and  departed  cities?  the  vanishing 
or  vanished  capitals  of  renowned   empires? 
There  is  no  other  such  desolation.     The  soli- 
tudes of  nature   may  be  wild  and  drear,  but 
they  are  not  like  the  solitude  from  which  hu- 
man glory  is  swept  away.  The  overthrow  or  de- 
cay of  mighty  human  power  is,  of  all  thoughts 
that  can  enter  the  mind,  the  most  overwhelm- 
ing.    The  whole  imagination  is  at  once  stirred 
by  the   prostration   of  that,  round  which  so 
many  high  associations  have  been   collected 
for  so  many  ages.     Beauty  seems  born  but  to 
perish,  and  its  fragility  is  seen  and  felt  to  be 
inherent  in  it  by  a  law  of  its  being.     But  pow- 
er gives  stability,  as  it  were,  to  human  thought, 
and  we  forget  our  own  perishable  nature  in  the 
spectacle  of  some  abiding  and  enduring  great- 
ness.    Our  own  little  span  of  years — our  own 
confined  region  of  space — are  lost  in  the  en- 
durance   and  far-spread   dominion    of    some 
mighty  state,  and  we  feel  as  if  we  partook  of 
its  deep-set  and  triumphant  strength.     When, 
therefore,  a  great  and  ancient  empire  falls  into 
pieces,  or  when   fragments  of  its  power  are 
heard  rent  asunder,  like  column  after  column 
disparting  from  some  noble  edifice,  in  sad  con- 
viction, we  feel  as  if  all  the  cities  of  men  were 
built  on  foundations  beneath  which  the  earth- 
quake sleeps.     The  same  doom  seems   to  be 
imminent  over  all  the  other  kingdoms  that  still 
stand ;  and  in  the  midst  of  such  changes,  and 
decays,  and  overthrows — or  as  we  read  of  ihem 
of  old — we  look,  under  such  emotions,  on  all 
power  as  foundationless,  and  in  our  wide  im- 
agination embrace  empires  covered  only  with 
the  ruins  of  their  desolation.     Yet  such  is  the 
pride  of  the  human  spirit,  that  it  often  uncon- 
sciously, under  the  influence  of  such  imagina- 
tion, strives  to  hide  from  itself  the  utter  no- 
thingness of  its  mightiest  works.     And  when 
all  its  glories  are  visibly  crumbling  into  dust, 
it  creates  some  imaginary  power  to  overthrow 
the  fabrics  of  human  greatness — and  thus  at- 
tempts to  derive  a  kind  of  mournful  triumph 
even  in  its  very  fall.   Thus,  when  nations  have 
faded  away  in  their  sins  and  vices,  rotten  at 
the  heart  and  palsied   in  all  their  limbs,  we 
strive  not  to  think  of  that  sad  internal  decay, 
but  imagine  some  mighty  power  smiting  ern- 
pires  and  cutting  short  the  records  of  mortal 
magnificence.    Thus,  Faith  and    Destiny  are 
said  in  our  imagination  to  lay  our  glories  low. 
Thus,  even  the  calm  and  silent  air  of  Oblivion 
has  been  thought  of  as  an  unsparing  Power. 
Time,  too,  though    in  moral   sadness  wisely 
called  a  shadow,  has  been  clothed  with  terrific 
attributes,  and  the  sweep  of  his    scythe  has 
shorn  the  towery  diadem  of  cities.     Thus  the 
mere   sigh   in    which    we    expire,   has    been 
changed  into  active  power — and  all  the  nations 
have  with  one  voice  called  out  '*  Death  !"  And 
while  mankind  have  sunk,  and  fallen,  and  dis- 
appeared in  the  helplessness  of  their  own  mor- 
tal being,  we  have  stiu  spoken  of  powers  ar- 
rayed against  them — powers  that  are  in  good 
truth  only  another  name  for  their  own  weak- 
nesses.    Thus  imagination  is  for  ever  fi?hting 
against  truth — and  even  when  humbled,  iier 


visions  are  sublime — conscious  even  amongst 
saddest  ruin  of  her  own  immortality. 

Higher  and  higher  than  ever  rose  the  tower 
of  Belus,  uplifted  by  ecstasy,  soars  the  Lark, 
the  lyrical  poet  of  the  sky.  Listen,  listen  !  and 
the  more  remote  the  bird  the  louder  seems  his 
hymn  in  heaven.  He  seems,  in  such  altitude, 
to  have  left  the  earth  for  ever,  and  to  have  for- 
gotten his  lowly  nest.  The  primroses  and  the 
daisies,  and  all  the  sweet  hill-flowers,  must  be 
unremembered  in  that  lofty  region  of  light. 
But  just  as  the  Lark  is  lost — he  and  his  song 
together — as  if  his  orisons  had  been  accepted 
— both  are  seen  and  heard  fondly  wavering 
earthwards,  and  in  a  little  while  he  is  walking 
with  his  graceful  crest  contented  along  the 
furrows  of  the  brairded  corn,  or  on  the  clover 
lea  that  in  man's  memor}'  has  not  felt  the 
ploughshare;  or  after  a  pause,  in  which  he 
seems  dallyin?  with  a  home-sick  passion, 
dropping  down  like  one  dead,  beside  his  mate 
in  her  shallow  nest. 

Of  all  birds  to  whom  is  given  dominion  over 
the  air,  the  Lark  alone  lets  loose  the  power 
that  is  in  his  wings  only  for  the  expression  of 
love  and  gratitude.  The  eagle  sweeps  in  pas- 
sion of  hunger — poised  in  the  sky  his  ken  is 
searching  for  prey  on  sea  or  sward — his  flight 
is  ever  animated  by  destruction.  The  dove 
sqcms  still  to  be  escaping  from  something  that 
pursues — afraid  of  enemies  even  in  the  danger- 
less  solitudes  where  the  old  forests  repose  in 
primeval  peace.  The  heron,  high  over  house- 
less moors,  seems  at  dusk  fearful  in  her  la- 
borious flight,  and  weariedly  gathers  her  long 
wings  on  the  tree-top,  as  if  thankful  that  day 
is  done,  and  night  again  ready  with  its  rest. 
"The  blackening  trains  o' craws  to  their  re- 
pose" is  an  image  that  aflects  the  heart  of 
"mortal  man  who  liveih  here  by  toil,"  through 
sympathy  with  creatures  partaking  with  him  a 
common  lot.  The  swallow,  for  ever  on  the 
wing,  and  wheeling  fitfully  before  fancy's  eyes 
in  element  adnpteil  for  perpetual  pastime,  is 
Hying  but  to  feed — for  lack  of  insects  prepares 
to  frrsake  the  land  of  its  nativity,  and  yearns 
for  the  blast  to  bear  it  across  the  sea.  Thou 
alone,  O  Lark  !  hast  wings  given  thee  that 
thou  mayest  be  perfectly  happy — none  other 
bird  but  thou  can  at  once  soar  and  sing — and 
heavenward  thou  seemest  to  be  borne,  not 
more  by  those  twinkling  pinions  than  by  the 
ever-varying,  ever-deepening  melody  eflusing 
from  thy  heart. 

How  imagination  unifies!  then  most  inten- 
sive when  working  with  and  in  the  heart. 
Who  thinks,  when  profoundly  listening  with 
his  eyes  shut  to  the  warbling  air,  that  there  is 
another  lark  in  creation  ?  The  lark — sole  as 
the  season — or  the  rainbow.  We  can  lancy 
he  sings  to  charm  our  own  particular  ear — to 
please  us  descends  into  silence — for  our  sakes 
erects  his  crest  as  he  walks  confidingly  near 
our  feet.  IS'ot  till  the  dream-circle,  of  which 
ourselves  are  the  centre,  dissolves  or  subsides, 
do  the  fairest  sights  and  sweetest  sounds  in 
nature  lose  their  relationship  to  us  the  beholder 
and  hearer,  and  relapse  into  the  common  pro- 
perty of  all  our  kind.  To  self  appertains  the 
whole  sensuous  as  well  as  the  whole  spiritual 
world.     Egoism  is  the  creator  of  all  beauiy 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


209 


and  all  bliss,  of  all  hope  and  of  all  faith.  Even 
thus  doth  imagination  unify  Sabbath  worship. 
All  our  beloved  Scotland  is  to  the  devout 
breast  on  that  day  one  House  of  God.  Each 
congregation — however  far  apart — hears  but 
one  hymn — sympathy  with  all  is  an  all-com- 
prehensive self — and  Christian  love  of  our 
brethren  is  evolved  from  the  conviction  that 
we  have  ourselves  a  soul  to  be  saved  or  lost. 

Yet,  methinks,  imagination  loveth  just  as 
well  to  pursue  an  opposite  process,  and  to  fur- 
nish food  to  the  heart  in  separate  picture  after 
separate  picture,  one  and  all  imbued  not  with 
the  same  but  congenial  sentiment,  and  there- 
fore succeeding  one  another  at  her  will,  be  her 
will  intimated  by  mild  bidding  or  imperial 
command.  In  such  mood  imagination,  in  still 
series,  visicms  a  thousand  parish-kirks,  each 
with  its  own  ch^racterislicilocalities.  Sabbath- 
sanctified;  distributes  the  beauty  of  that  hal- 
lowed day  in  allotments  all  over  the  happy 
land — so  that  in  one  Sabbath  there  are  a  thou- 
sand Sabbaths. 

Keep  caroling,  then,  altogether,  ye  countless 
Larks,  till  heaven  is  one  hymn  !  Imagination 
thinks  she  sees  each  particular  field  that  sends 
up  its  own  singer  to  the  sky — that  the  spot  of 
each  particular  nest.  And  of  the  many  hearts 
all  over  loveliest  Scotland  in  the  sweet  vernal 
season  a-listening  your  lays,  she  is  with  the 
quiet  beatings  of  the  happy,  with  the  tumult  in 
them  that  would  wish  to  break!  The  little 
maiden  by  the  well  in  the  brae-side  above  the 
cottage,  with  the  Bible  on  her  knees,  left  in 
tendance  of  an  infant — the  palsied  crone 
placed  safely  in  the  sunshine  till  after  service 
— the  sickly  student  meditating  in  the  shade, 
and  somewhat  sadly  thinking  that  these  spring 
flowers  are  the  last  his  eyes  may  see — lovers 
walking  together  on  the  Sabbath  before  their 
marriage  to  the  house  of  God — life-wearied 
wanderers  without  a  home — remorseful  men 
touched  by  the  innocent  happiness  they  cannot 
help  hearing  in  heaven — the  skeptic — the  \\n- 
believer — the  atheist  to  whom  "  hope  comes  not 
that  comes  to  all."  What  different  meanings 
to  such  different  auditors  hath  the  same  music 
at  the  same  moment  filling  the  same  sky ! 

Does  the  Lark  ever  sing  in  winter?  Ay, 
sometimes  January  is  visited  with  a  May-day 
hour  ;  and  in  the  genial  glimpse,  though  the 
earth  be  yet  barer  than  the  sky,  the  Lark,  mute 
for  months,  feels  called  on  by  the  sun  to  sing, 
not  so  near  to  heaven's  gate,  and  a  shorter  than 
vernal  lyric,  or  during  that  sweetest  season 
when  neither  he  nor  you  can  say  whether  it  is 
summer  or  but  spring.  Unmated  yet,  nor  of 
mate  solicitous,  in  pure  joy  of  heart  he  canno.t 
refrain  from  ascent  and  song;  but  the  snow- 
clouds  look  cold,  and  ere  he  has  mounted  as 
high  again  as  the  church-spire,  the  aimless 
impulse  dies,  and  he  comes  wavering  down 
silently  to  the  yet  unprimrosed  brae. 

In  our  boyish  days,  we  never  felt  that  the 
Spring  had  really  come  till  the  clear-singing 
Lark  went  careering  before  our  gladdened  eyes 
away  up  to  heaven.  Then  all  the  earth  wore 
a  vernal  look,  and  the  ringing  sky  said,  "win- 
ter is  over  and  gone."  As  we  roamed,  on  a 
holiday,  over  the  wide  pastoral  moors,  to  angle 
in  the  lochs  and  pools,  unless  the  day  were 
27 


very  cloudy  the  song  of  some  lark  or  other 
was  still  warbling  aloft,  and  made  a  part  of  our 
happiness.  The  creature  could  not  have  been 
more  joyful  in  the  skies  than  we  were  on  the 
greensward.  We,  too,  had  our  wings,  and  flew 
through  our  holiday.  Thou  soul  of  glee !  who 
still  leddest  our  flight  in  all  our  pastimes — re- 
presentative child  of  Erin ! — wildest  of  the 
wild — brightest  of  the  bright — boldest  of  the 
bold  ! — the  lark-loved  vales  in  their  stillness 
were  no  home  for  thee.  The  green  glens  of 
ocean,  created  by  swelling  and  subsiding 
storms,  or  by  calms  around  thy  ship  trans- 
formed into  immeasurable  plains,  they  filled 
thy  fancy  with  images  dominant  over  the  me- 
mories of  the  steadfast  earth.  The  petlerel 
and  the  halcyon  were  the  birds  the  sailor 
loved,  and  he  forgot  the  songs  of  the  inland 
woods  in  the  moanings  that  haunt  the  very 
heart  of  the  tumultuous  sea.  Of  that  ship  no- 
thing was  ever  known  but  that  she  perished. 
He,  too,  the  grave  and  thoughtful  English  boy, 
whose  exquisite  scholarship  we  all  so  enthusi- 
astically admired,  without  one  single  particle 
of  hopeless  envy — and  who  accompanied  us 
on  all  our  wildest  expeditions,  rather  from  af- 
fection to  his  playmates  than  any  love  of  their 
sports — he  who,  timid  and  unadventurous  as 
he  seemed  to  be,  yet  rescued  little  Marian  of 
the  Brae  from  a  drowning  death  when  so  many 
grown-up  men  stood  aloof  in  selfish  fear — 
gone,  too,  for  ever  art  thou,  our  beloved  Ed- 
ward Harrington  !  and,  after  a  few  brilliant 
years  in  the  oriental  clime, 

"on  Hoogley's  banks  afar. 

Looks  down  on  thy  lone  tomb  the  Evening  .Star." 

How  genius  shone  o'er  thy  fine  features,  ye^ 
how  pale  thou  ever  wast !  thou  who  sat'st  then 
by  the  Sailor's  side,  and  listened  to  his  sallies 
with  a  mournful  smile — friend  !  dearest  to  our 
soul!  loving  us  far  better  than  we  deserved; 
for  though  faultless  thou,  yet  tolerant  of  all  our 
frailties — and  in  those  days  of  hope  from  thy 
lips  how  elevating  was  praise  !  Yet  how  sel- 
dom do  we  think  of  thee!  For  months — years 
— not  at  all — not  once — sometimes  not  even 
when  by  some  chance  we  hear  your  name  ! 
It  meets  our  eyes  written  on  books  that  once 
belonged  to  you  and  that  3'ou  gave  us — and 
yet  of  3-ourself  it  recalls  no  image.  Yet  we 
sank  down  to  the  floor  on  hearing  thou  wast 
dead — ungrateful  to  thy  memory  for  many 
years  we  were  not — but  it  faded  away  till  we 
forgot  thee  utterly,  except  when  sleep  showed 
thy  grave ! 

Methinks  we  hear  the  song  of  the  Gray 
LixTiE,  the  darling  bird  of  Scotland.  None 
other  is  more  tenderly  sung  of  in  our  old  ballads. 
When  the  simple  and  fervent  love-poets  of  our 
pastoral  times  first  applied  to  the  maiden  the 
words,  "  my  bonnie  burdie,"  they  must  have 
been  thinking  of  the  Gray  Lintie — its  plumage 
ungaudy  and  soberly  pure — its  shape  elegant 
yet  unobtrusive — and  its  song  various  withou*' 
any  effort — now  rich,  gay,  sprightly,  but  nev?r 
rude  nor  riotous — now  tender,  almost  mourn- 
ful, but  never  gloomy  or  desponding.  So,  too, 
are  all  its  habits,  endearing  and  delightful.  It 
is  social,  yet  not  averse  to  solitude,  singing 
often  in  groups,  and  as  often  tv  itself  in  the 
s2 


210 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


furze  brake,  or  on  the  briery  knoll.  You  often 
find  the  lintie's  nest  in  the  most  solitar}-  places 
— in  some  small  self-sown  clump  of  trees  by 
the  brink  of  a  -wild  hill-stream,  or  on  the  tan- 
gled edge  of  a  forest;  and  just  as  often  you 
find  it  in  the  hedgerow  of  the  cottage  garden 
or  in  a  bower  within,  or  even  in  an  old  goose- 
berry bush  that  has  grown  into  a  sort  of  tree. 

One  wild  and  beautiful  place  we  well  re- 
member— ay,  the  very  bush  in  which  we  first 
found  a  gray  lintie's  nest — for  in  our  parish, 
from  some  cause  or  other,  it  was  rather  a 
rarish  bird.  That  far-away  day  is  as  distinct 
as  the  present  now.  Imagine,  friend,  first,  a 
little  well  surrounded  with  wild  cresses  on  the 
moor;  something  like  a  rivulet  flows  from  it, 
or  rather  you  see  a  deep  tinge  of  verdure,  the 
line  of  which,  you  believe,  must  be  produced 
by  the  oozing  moisture — yo  i  follow  it,  and  by 
and  by  there  is  a  descent  palpable  to  your  feet 
— then  you  find  yourself  between  low  broomy 
knolls,  that,  heightening  every  step,  become 
erelong  banks,  and  braes,  and  hills.  You  are 
surprised  now  to  see  a  stream,  and  look  round 
for  its  source — and  there  seem  now  to  be  a 
hundred  small  sources  in  fissures  and  spring  on 
every  side — you  hear  the  murmurs  of  its  course 
over  beds  of  sand  and  gravel — and  hark,  a 
■waterfall !  A  tree  or  two  begins  to  shake  its 
tresses  on  the  horizon — a  birch  or  a  rowan. 
You  get  ready  your  angle — and  by  the  time 
5'ou  have  panniered  three  dozen,  you  are  at  a 
wooden  bridge — you  fish  the  pool  above  it  with 
the  delicate  dexterity  of  a  Boaz,  capture  the 
monarch  of  the  flood,  and  on  lifting  your  eyes 
from  his  starry  side  as  he  gasps  his  last  on  the 
silvery  shore,  you  behold  a  Cottage,  at  one 
gable-end  an  ash,  at  the  other  a  sycamore,  and 
standing  perhaps  at  the  lonely  door,  a  maiden 
like  a  fairy  or  an  angel. 

This  is  the  Age  of  Confessions;  and  why, 
therefore,  may  we  not  make  a  confession  of 
first-love  1  We  had  finished  our  sixteenth 
)'ear — and  we  were  almost  as  tall  as  we  are 
now  ;  for  our  figure  was  then  straight  as  an 
arrow,  and  almost  like  an  arrow  in  its  flight. 
"We  had  given  over  bird-nesting — hut  we  had 
not  ceased  to  visit  the  dell  where  first  we  found 
the  Gray  Lintie's  brood.  Tale-writers  are  told 
by  critics  to  remember  that  the  j'oung  shepherd- 
esses of  Scotland  are  not  beautiful  as  the  ficli(m 
of  a  poet's  dream.  But  she  was  beautiful  beyond 
poetry.  She  was  so  then,  when  passion  and 
imagination  were  young — and  her  image,  her 
undying,  unfading  image,  is  so  now,  when 
passion  and  imagination  arc  old,  and  when 
from  eye  and  soul  have  disappeared  much  of 
the  beauty  and  glory  both  of  nature  and  life. 
"NVe  loved  her  from  the  first  moment  that  our 
eyes  met — and  we  see  their  light  at  this  mo- 
ment— the  same  soft,  burning  light,  that  set 
body  and  soul  on  fire.  She  was  but  a  poor 
shepherd's  daughter;  but  what  was  that  to  us, 
n'hen  we  heard  her  voice  singing  one  of  her 
old  plaintive  ballads  among  the  braes  1 — When 
've  sat  down  beside  her — when  the  same  plaid 
vas  drawn  over  our  shoulders  in  the  rain-storm 
— when  we  asked  her  for  a  kiss,  and  was  not 
refused—  for  what  had  she  to  fear  in  her  beauty, 
nnd  her  innocence,  and  her  filial  piety  1 — and 
'"ere  we  nc*  s.  mere  boy,  in  the  bliss  of  passion, 


ignorant  of  deceit  or  dishonour,  and  with  a 
heart  open  to  the  eyes  of  all  as  to  the  gates  of 
heaven?  What  music  was  in  that  stream! 
Could  "  Sabean  odours  from  the  spicy  shores 
of  Araby  the  Blest"  so  penetrate  our  soul,  as 
that  breath,  balmier  than  the  broom  on  which 
we  sat,  forgetful  of  all  other  human  life ! 
Father,  mother,  brothers,  sisters,  uncles,  and 
aunts,  and  cousins,  and  all  the  tribe  of  friends 
that  w'ould  throw  us  ofi" — if  we  should  be  so 
base  and  mad  as  to  marr\'  a  low-born,  low- 
bread,  ignorant,  uneducated,  crafty,  ay,  crafty 
and  designing  beggar — were  all  forgotten  in 
our  delirium — if  indeed  it  were  delirium — and 
not  an  everlastingly-sacred  devotion  to  nature 
and  to  truth.  For  in  what  were  we  deluded  ? 
A  voice — a  Aiint  and  dewy  voice — deadened 
by  the  earth  that  fills  up  her  grave,  and  by  the 
turf  that,  at  this  very  hour,  is  expanding  its 
primroses  to  the  dew  of  heaven — answers,  "In 
nothing!" 

"Ha!  ha!  ha!"  exclaims  some  reader  in 
derision.  "  Here's  an  attempt  at  the  pathetic  ! 
— a  miserable  attempt  indeed;  for  who  cares 
about  the  death  of  a  mean  hut  girl? — we  are 
sick  of  low  life."  Why,  as  to  that  matter,  who 
cares  for  the  death  of  any  one  mortal  being? 
Who  weeps  for  the  death  of  the  late  Emperor 
of  all  the  Russias  ?  Who  wept  over  Napoleon 
the  Great  ?  When  Chatham  or  Burke,  Pitt  or 
Fox  died^-don't  pretend  to  tell  lies  about  a 
nation's  tears.  And  if  yourself,  who,  perhaps, 
are  not  in  low  life,  were  to  die  in  half  an  hour, 
(don't  be  alarmed,)  all  who  knew  you-^xcept 
two  or  three  of  your  bosom  friends,  who,  partly 
from  being  somewhat  dull,  and  partly  from 
wishing  to  be  decent,  might  whine — would 
walk  along  George's  Street,  at  the  fashionable 
hour  of  three,  the  very  day  after  your  funeral. 
Nor  would  it  ever  cuter  their  lieads  to  abstain 
from  a  dinner  at  the  Club,  ordered  perhaps  by 
yourself  a  fortnight  ago,  at  which  time  you 
were  in  rude  health,  merely  because  j-ou  had 
foolishly  allowed  a  cold  lo  fasten  upon  your 
lungs,  and  carry  you  ofl"  in  the  prime  and  pro- 
mise of  your  professional  life.  In  spite  of  all 
your  critical  slang,  therefore,  Mr.  Editor,  or 
Master  Contributor  to  some  Literary  Journal, 
siiK,  though  a  poor  S'oilish  Herd,  was  most 
beautiful;  and  when,  but  a  week  after  taking 
farewell  of  her,  wc  went,  according  to  our 
tryst,  to  fold  her  in  our  arms,  and  was  told  by 
her  father  that  she  was  dead, — ay,  dead — that 
she  had  no  existence — that  she  was  in  a  coffm, 
— when  we  awoke  from  the  dead-fit  in  which 
we  had  lain  on  the  floor  of  that  cottage,  and 
saw  her  in  her  grave-clothes  within  an  hour  to 
be  buried — when  we  stood  at  her  burial — and 
knew  that  never  more  were  we  or  the  day  lo 
behold  her  presence — we  learned  then  how  im- 
measurably misery  can  surpass  happiness — 
that  the  soul  is  ignorant  of  its  own  being,  till 
all  at  once  a  thunder-stone  plunges  down  its 
depths,  and  groans  gurgle  upwards  upbraiding 
Heaven. 

How  easily  can  the  heart  change  its  mood 
from  the  awful  to  the  solemn — from  the  solemn 
to  the  sweet — and  from  the  sweet  to  the  gay- 
while  the  mirth  of  this  careless  moment  is  un- 
consciously tempered  by  the  influence  of  that 
holy  hour  that  has  subsided  but  not  died,  and 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


211 


continues  to  colour  the  most  ordinary  emotion, 
as  the  common  things  of  earth  look  all  lovelier 
in  imbibed  light,  even  after  the  serene  moon  that 
had  yielded  it  is  no  more  visible  in  her  place  ! 
Most  gentle  are  such  transitions  in  the  calm 
of  nature  and  of  the  heart;  all  true  poetry  is 
full  of  them  ;  and  in  music  how  pleasant  are 
they  or  how  affecting !  Those  alternations  of 
tears  and  smiles,  of  fervent  aspirations  and  of 
quiet  thoughts !  The  organ  and  the  ^-Eolian 
harp  !  As  the  one  has  ceased  pealing  praise, 
we  can  list  the  other  whispering  it — nor  feels 
the  soul  any  loss  of  emotion  in  the  change — 
still  true  to  itself  and  its  wondrous  nature — 
just  as  it  is  so  when  from  the  sunset  clouds  it 
turns  its  eyes  to  admire  the  beauty  of  a  dew- 
drop  or  an  insect's  wing. 

Now,  we  hear  many  of  our  readers  crying 
out  against  the  barbarity  of  confining  the  free 
denizens  of  the  air  in  wire  or  wicker  Cages. 
Gentle  readers,  do,  we  pray,  keep  your  com- 
passion for  other  objects.  Or,  if  you  are  dis- 
posed to  be  argumentative  with  us,  let  us  just 
walk  down-stairs  to  the  larder,  and  tell  the 
public  truly  what  we  there  behold — three  brace 
of  partridges,  two  ditto  of  moorfowl,  a  cock 
pheasant,  poor  fellow, — a  man  and  his  wife  of 
the  aquatic  or  duck  kind,  and  a  woodcock, 
vainly  presenting  his  long  Christmas  bill — 
"  Somo  sleeping  kill'd — 
All  murdt'r'd." 

Why,  you  are  indeed  a  most  logical  reasoner, 
and  a  most  considerate  Christian,  when  you 
launch  out  into  an  invective  against  the  cru- 
elty exhibited  in  our  Cages.  Let  us  leave  this 
den  of  murder,  and  have  a  glass  of  our  home- 
made frontignac  in  our  own  Sanctum.  Come, 
come,  sir — look  on  this  newlv-married  couple 
of  Caxahiks. — The  architecture  of  their  nest 
is  certainly  not  of  the  florid  order,  but  my  Lady 
Yellowiees  sits  on  it  a  well-satisfied  bride. 
Come  back  in  a  day  or  two,  and  you  will  see 
her  nursing  triplets.  Meanwhile,  hear  the 
car-piercing  fife  of  the  bridegroom! — Where 
will  you  find  a  set  of  happier  people,  unless 
perhaps  it  be  in  our  parlour,  or  our  library,  or 
our  nursery!  For,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  there 
is  a  cage  or  two  in  almost  every  room  of  the 
house.  Where  is  the  cruelty — here,  or  in  your 
blood-stained  larder?  But  you  must  eat,  you 
reply.  'We  answer — not  necessarily  birds. 
The  question  is  about  birds — cruelty  to  birds; 
and  were  that  sagacious  old  wild-goose,  whom 
one  single  moment  of  heedlessness  brought 
last  Wednesday  to  your  hospitable  board,  at 
this  moment  alive,  to  bear  a  part  in  our  con- 
versation, can  you  dream  that,  with  all  your 
ingenuity  and  eloquence,  you  could  persuade 
him — the  now  defunct  and  dissected — that  you 
had  been  under  the  painful  necessity  of  eating 
him  with  stuffmg  and  apple-sauce  1 

It  is  not  in  nature  that  an  ornithologist 
should  be  cruel — he  is  most  humane.  Mere 
skin-stuffers  are  not  ornithologists — and  we 
have  known  more  than  one  of  that  tribe  who 
would  have  had  no  scruple  in  strangling  their 
own  mothers,  or  reputed  fathers.  Yet  if  your 
true  ornithologist  cannot  catch  a  poor  dear 
bird  alive,  he  must  kill  it — and  leave  you  to 
•weep  for  its  death.  There  must  be  a  few  vic- 
tims out  of  myriads  of  millions — and  thousands 


and  tens  of  thousands  are  few;  but  the  orni- 
thologist knows  the  seasons  when  death  is 
least  afflictive — he  is  merciful  in  his  wisdom 
— for  the  spirit  of  knowledge  is  gentle — and 
"thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears," 
reconcile  him  to  the  fluttering  and  ruffled  plu- 
mage blood-stained  by  death.  'Tis  hard,  for 
example,  to  be  obliged  to  shoot  a  Zenaida 
dove !  Yet  a  Zenaida  dove  must  die  for  Audu- 
bon's Illustrations.  How  many  has  he  loved 
in  life,  and  tenderly  preserved!  And  how 
many  more  pigeons  of  all  sorts,  cooked  in  all 
styles,  have  you  devoured — ay  twenty  for  his 
one — you  being  a  glutton  and  epicure  in  the 
same  inhuman  form,  and  he  being  contented  at 
all  times  with  the  plainest  fare — a  salad  per- 
haps of  water-cresses  plucked  from  a  spring  in 
the  forest  glade,  or  a  bit  of  pemmican,  or  a  wa- 
fer of  portable  soup  melted  in  the  pot  of  some 
squatter — and  shared  with  the  admiring  chil- 
dren before  a  drop  has  been  permitted  to  touch 
his  own  abstemious  lips. 

The  intelligent  author  of  the  "Treatise  oa 
British  Birds"  does  not  condescend  to  justify 
the  right  we  claim  to  encage  them;  but  he 
shows  his  genuine  humanity  in  instructing  us 
how  to  render  happy  and  healthful  their  im- 
prisonment. He  says  very  prettily,  "  What  are 
town  gardens  and  shrubberies  in  squares,  but 
an  attempt  to  ruralize  the  cityl  So  strong  is 
the  desire  in  man  to  participate  in  country 
pleasures,  that  he  tries  to  bring  some  of  them 
even  to  his  room.  Plants  and  birds  are  sought 
after  with  avidity,  and  cherished  with  delight. 
With  flowers  he  endeavours  to  make  his  apart- 
ments resemble  a  garden;  and  thinks  of  groves 
and  fields,  as  he  listens  to  the  wild  sweet  me- 
lody of  his  little  captives.  Those  who  keep 
and  take  an  interest  in  song-birds,  are  oflen  at 
a  loss  how  to  treat  their  little  warblers  during 
illness,  or  to  prepare  the  proper  food  best  suit- 
ed to  their  various  constitutions ;  but  that 
knowledge  is  absolutely  necessary  to  preserve 
these  little  creatures  in  health  ;  for  want  of  it, 
young  amateurs  and  bird-fanciers  have  often 
seen,  with  regret,  many  of  their  favourite  birds 
perish." 

Now,  here  we  confess  is  a  good  physician. 
In  Edinburgh  we  understand  there  are  about 
five  hundred  medical  practitioners  on  the  hu- 
man race — and  we  have  dog-doctors  and  horse- 
doctors,  Vv-ho  come  out  in  numbers — but  we 
have  no  bird-doctors.  Yet  often,  too  often, 
when  the  whole  house  rings,  from  garret  to 
cellar,  with  the  cries  of  children  teething,  or  in 
the  hooping-cough,  the  little  linnet  sits  silent 
on  his  perch,  a  moping  bunch  of  feathers,  and 
then  falls  down  dead,  when  his  lilting  life 
might  have  been  saved  by  the  simplest  medi- 
cinal food  skilfully  administered.  Surely  if 
we  have  physicians  to  attend  our  treadmills, 
and  regulate  the  diet  and  day's  work  of  merci- 
less ruffians,  we  should  not  suffer  our  innocent 
and  useful  prisoners  thus  to  die  unattended. 
Why  do  not  the  Ladies  of  Edinburgh  form 
themselves  into  a  Society  for  this  purpose  1 

Not  one  of  all  the  philosophers  in  the  world 
has  been  able  to  tell  us  what  is  happiness. 
Sterne's  Starling  is  weakly  supposed  to  have 
been  miserable.  Probably  he  was  one  of  the 
most  contented  birds  in  the  universe.    Does 


•Z\'i 


iniciv'HA'noiNN  ^)F  ciiKisroi'iii;!;  nokiii. 


ronliiK'nH'iil      llif  i'Idsi-sI,  inn,',!  iiiiinc(iin|i;iiiir(| 

CDIllUlI'MIIMit — llialu'  (illlMPriUllM'U'l'S  llllllilpliy  '! 

In  tin'  slmfniiilu'r,  silling;  wllli  IiIn  IicmiI  on  IiIn 
kni'i".,  Ill  a  liulc  ill  till-  w.ill  rnnii  mill  iilll^'  In 
Ili^;lll,   III    lin\     |c-.|iri-|     III    111-    |i|||ril  '        I  ,    lllf  ,sii- 

liliU'V  iHpliiiii,  lliat  Ml^  nil  ilay  mu  in;.',  in  ii^'iil'- 
icl,  wliilf  liii^  (lid  vvcmiiii  lor  ulunii  ^\\t'  winks 
is  out  wiinIuiii^,  nil  oIiJimM  nl' <'iiiii|iaNsi(in '!  or 
tliK  willow  of  ('niiiscdiis  liiiilihii",  iiviT  lilt'  fin-, 
bi'i's,  willi  a  slmii|t  ol'  a  I'liif  in  Iwr  lonllilf.ss 
nxmlli  !  Is  it  so  sad  a  lliin^'  indrod  in  hr  almir  ! 
or  III  liavt'  oni''s  niolimis  ('iiciiniNi'iilifi!  w  nlun 
the  nallll^vl•.^l  una,"  inalilr  liinils'  INniraiiM! 
all! 

'i'lii'ii,  ^^iMillf  ifadiT,  wrir  yon  t'viT  in  a 
llif.',lilanil  sluidinf.;!  OI'liMi  sinrf  yon  read  ijnr 
Ki'iiralions.  It  is  Iniill  ol'  tni[,  and  is  liliTally 
alive;  lor  tin-  lifanliriil  lifallirr  is  liiooniinf<, 
wild-llowi'i's  and  walls  and  rooraif  onr  Minnd 
oCbfe.s,  'I'hn  indnslrions  liiilf  l•l■■alll^l•^  innsi 
have  come  sfvcrnl  loiii<  niilt-s  lin  llicir  lialniy 
spoil.  'I'lit'ii'  IS  liiil  niir  liiiiiian  ciialiiii'  in 
llial  sliii'linr.,  lull  III'  IS  iml  al  all  snliLm.  Mr 
no  inoi'i'  wfaiit's  ol  llinl  loncsonir  olai'i'  than 
do  llif  siinlii-anis  or  till'  shadows.  'I  o  liinisfll' 
aloiif  111'  cliannls  his  old  d'ai'lic  soii;.cs,  or 
I'ranit's  wild  dillics  of  his  own  to  tlif  ravi-n  or 
the  rt'd-di'fr.  Monllis  thus  pass  on  j  and  in' 
descends  a^'ain  lo  Iho  lower  eoiinlry.  Perhaps 
ho  ffoes  III  llie  wars — linhls — hleeds — and  re- 
turns III  Itadcnoch' or  1<oehaliei-;  and  oiiee 
more,  blending  in  his  iniaginalion  the  hallles 
ol'liis  own  ref<ini«'iil,  in  l'"^'y|>l,  Npain,  or  Flan- 
ders, with  the  deeds  done  of  yore  hy  Ossian 
snnf^^  sits  ronlented  hy  the  door  ol'  the  same 
shieling;,  reslmeil  and  lieaiitilied,  in  wliieli  lie 
liad  dieaint  away  Ihe  .Mininiers  oC  his  yonlh. 

What  has  lieeonu' — we  wonder — of  Darl- 
nioor  I'l  ison  !  Dm  iiif-r  llial  Ioiil;  war  ils  hu;.;e 
and  liiileoiiN  luilL  w  as  lilli'il'u  ilh  l''i  I'liilimen — 
a\     - 


iImII  rllini-H     iMIiirJiM  In  iimik 


«  I'll'  llirli'  l' 


— a  despeiiile  raee — roliliers  and  reavers,  and 
inllians  and  rapers.and  pirales  and  innnlerers 
niin;^led  with  Ihe  heroes  who,  lired  hy  liei-doni, 
liail  I'onf^'hl  lor  Ihe  land  ol'  lilies,  wilh  ils  vine- 
vales  and  "  hills  of  swerl  myrlle" — doomed  lo 
die  III  eaplivity,  iminnred  in  thai  dolel'iil  inan- 
Mon  on  the  sullen  moor.  'I'here  ihonsainls 
]>ined  and  wore  away  and  wasted — and  when 
not  anolher  ^^roan  remained  within  the  hones 
of  tlieir  breasts,  they  j^'ave  np  the  f^'hosl,  Vonng 
heroes  i>renialnrely  tdd  in  balllid  passions — 
life's  best  ami  slroii;j;est  passions,  that  seorned 
to  fjo  to  sleep  bill  in  the  sleep  of  dealli.  'I'hese 
died  in  their  s^olden  prime.  Wilh  Iheiii  went 
dou  II  into  iinpilii'd  and  iinhoiionred  i^'iiues — 
for  piiy  and  lunioiir  dwell  iiol  in  houses  so 
hannled. — veterans  in  llieir  iron  aije — some 
.self-smitten  wilh  }^liaNilv  uoniuU  that  lei  life 
finally  luibble  out  of  sinewy  iieek  or  slias?j;'y 
bosom — or  the  poison-lniwl  eonvnised  lluir 
nianl  limbs  nnlo  nmpiiverint;  rest.  Yet  there 
yon  s.iw  a  wild  slranj,;e  Ininnll  of  irouliled  hap- 
piness— whieli,  as  yon  looked  into  his  heart, 
was  traiislij,;iired  into  misery.  'I'heir  volatile 
spirits  Ihillered  in  their  ea;;e,  like  birds  thai 
seem  not  to  hate  nor  to  he  happy  in  euiiline- 
menl,  but,  baiutinf;  by  beak  or  elaws,  to  beolb-n 
jdayiii|;  with  the  !■,lillel■m^;  wires— to  he  aimis- 


111!'  llieiii selves,  so  it  seems,  wllh  diawili;^  lip, 
by  small  en^^inery,  iheii  fond  and  dunk,  whie.li 
soon  siekeiis,  liowevei,  mi  their  sinmaehs,  till, 
with  iiillli'il  pliiiiiat'i,  iliey  are  often  found  in 
the  inniiiih'  In  111'  nil  llieir  backs,  with  eleneh- 
»'il  fill,  and  neeli  heiil  as  if  Iwisled,  on  Ihe 
sei'ihbled  sand,  slone-dead.  There  yon  saw 
pale  yonllis--hoys  almost  like  girls,  so  delicate 
liinked  they  ill  that  hoi  infeeieil  air  which 
veiililale  it  as  yon  will,  is  never  felt  lo  breathe 
on  Ihe  face  like  the  fresh  air  of  liherly — once 
liold  and  hrighl  inidshipnien  in  frigate  or  lirst- 
raler,  and  saved  hy  being  picked  np  by  Ihe 
hoals  of  the  ship  ihiit  had  Mink  Iter  i)y  one 
doiihle-shoited  broadside,  or  seat  her  in  one 
explosion  splintering  inio  the  sKy,  and  splash- 
ing into  the  sea,  in  less  than  a  ininnle  ihethnn- 
der  silent,  and  Ihe  fiery  shower  over  and  gmie 
— there  yon  saw  smdi  lads  as  these,  «ho  used 
alnnist  lo  weep  if  they  got  not  duly  lli«*  ilear- 
desiied  li'iter  from  sister  or  sweelheiirl,  aiijl 
when  ihcy  did  duly  gel  il,  opened  it  willi  Ireiil- 
bliiig  lingers,  and  even  then  lei  dro|)  some  nn- 
inral  tears — there  wn  .saw  them  leaping,  and 
dancing,  wilh  gios.s  gesliciilalions  and  horrid 
oaths  obscene,  with  grim  onlcasis  from  niiliiie, 
who.M'  miislached  months  were  rank  tvilh  sin 
and  |iolliiiion — monsters  for  whom  hell  was 
yawning — their  mortal  mire  already  pos.sesNcd 
wilh  a  deimni.  There,  wrelched,  wo-begoiie, 
and  wearied  out  wilh  recklessness  and  licspc- 
ralioii,  many  wooed  Chance  and  Fotliine,  who 
Ihey  hoped  might  yet  lislen  lo  llieir  |irayi'rs — 
and  kept  lallling  the  dice — (Miising  them  that 
gave  the  indnlgeiiee — even  in  their  cells  of 
|Hinishmenl  for  disobedience  or  miiliny.  'I'hero 
yoii  saw  sninc,  who  in  the  crowded  cotirlH 
"sal  apail  leiui'd," — bringing  Ihe  practised 
^klll  that  once  siipporled,  or  the  iialive  gcnin.i 
that  once  ndorned  life,  lo  bear  on  beautiful 
iMinliivanccs  and  fancies  elaborately  e.xeculeil 
with  ml'ane^l  insirtiinents,  till  ihey  rivalled  or 
oiiidid  Ihe  work  of  art  assisted  by  all  Ihe  nii- 
nislries  of  science.  And  Ihus  won  ihey  a  poor 
pittance  wherewithal  lo  purchase  some  lillle 
cnmfort  or  liixnry,  or  ornament  lo  their  jier 
sons;  for  vanity  had  not  forsaken  .some  in  iheii 
riisly  si|nalor,  and  they  sought  to  please  her, 
their  mistress  or  their  bride.  There  you  saw 
accoiiijilished  men  conjuring  before  their  eyes, 
on  the  paper  or  Ihi'  canvas,  lo  fi-eil  ihc  loiip 
ings  of  their  souls,  the  lights  and  Ihe  shadows  of 
the  dear  ilays  that  far  away  were  beiiiilifyiiifj 
some  sacred  s|>ol  of  "/<(  hrllf  Fruiiit:" — perlinpi 
some  festal  scene,  for  love  in  sorrow  is  slill 
true  to  reinemheieil  joy — wliero  once  witli 
yoiilhs  and  mimlens 

"'l'lii'\  till  llir  it.iiici'  lM'r.lili'  II iiinntiiliiH  Loire." 

There  ymi  heard — and  hushed  then  was  all  Iho 
hubbub — some  clear  silver  voice,  sweet  almost 
as  woman's,  yet  (iill  of  manhood  in  ils  deplh?i, 
singing  lo  the  gay  guitar,  loiiched,  though  Iho 
musician  was  of  the  best  and  noblest  hlood  of 
France,  with  a  master's  hand,  "I.a  belle  (Jn- 
biielle!"  .\iiil  there  might  he  seen,  in  the  so 
litiiile  of  their  own  ahslraclion.'^,  men  with 
minds  that  had  sounded  the  profounds  of 
science,  and,  seemingly  nndisiurlied  by  all  that 
clamour,  pursuing  the  mysteries  of  lines  and 
mimber.s — conversing    with    the    liarmonious 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


213 


and  lofty  stars  of  heaven,  deaf  to  all  the  dis- 
cord and  despair  of  earth.  Or  religious  still 
even  more  than  they — for  those  were  mental, 
these  spiritual — you  beheld  there  men,  whose 
heads  before  their  time  were  becoming  grray, 
meditating  on  their  own  souls,  and  in  holy 
hope  and  humble  trust  in  their  Redeemer,  if 
not  yet  prepared,  perpetually  preparing  them- 
selves for  the  world  to  come  ! 

To  return  to  Birds  in  Cages; — they  are, 
when  well,  uniformly  as  happy  as  the  day  is 
long.  What  else  could  oblige  them,  whether 
ihey  will  or  no,  to  burst  out  into  song — to  hop 
about  so  pleased  and  pert — to  play  such  fan- 
tastic tricks,  like  so  many  whirligigs — to  sleep 
so  soundly,  and  to  awake  into  a  small,  shrill, 
compressed  twitter  of  joy  at  the  dawn  of  light  1 
So  utterly  mistaken  was  Sterne,  and  all  the 
other  sentimentalists,  that  his  Starling,  who  he 
absurdly  opined  was  wishing  to  get  out,  would 
not  have  stirred  a  peg  had  the  door  of  his  cage 
been  flung  wide  open,  but  would  have  pecked 
like  a  very  game-cock  at  the  hand  inserted  to 
give  him  his  liberty.  Depend  upon  it  that 
Starling  had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  what  he 
was  saying;  and  had  he  been  up  to  the  mean- 
ing of  his  words,  would  have  been  shocked  at 
his  ungrateful  folly.  Look  at  Canaries,  and 
Chaffinches,  and  Bullfinches,  and  "  the  rest," 
how  they  amuse  themselves  for  a  while  flitting 
about  the  room,  and  then,  finding  how  dull  a 
thing  it  is  to  be  citizens  of  the  world,  bounce 
up  to  their  cages,  and  shut  the  door  from  the 
inside,  glad  to  be  once  more  at  home.  Begin 
to  whistle  or  sing  yourself,  and  forthwith  you 
have  a  duet  or  a  trio.  We  can  imagine  no 
more  perfectly  tranquil  and  cheerful  life  than 
that  of  a  Goldfinch  in  a  cage  in  spring,  with 
his  wife  and  his  children.  All  his  social  af- 
fections are  cultivated  to  the  utmost-  He 
possesses  many  accomplishments  unknown  to 
his  brethren  among  the  trees; — he  has  never 
known  what  it  is  to  want  a  meal  in  times  of 
the  greatest  scarcity;  and  he  admires  the 
beautiful  frost-work  on  the  windows,  when 
thousands  of  his  feathered  friends  are  buried 
in  the  snow,  or,  what  is  almost  as  bad,  baked 
up  into  pies,  and  devoured  by  a  large  supper- 
parly  of  both  sexes,  who  fortify  their  flummery 
a-  '  flirtation  by  such  viands,  and,  remorseless, 
i.v  a",  low  dozens  upon  dozens  of  the  warblers 
of  the  woods. 

Ay,  ay,  Mr.  Goldy !  you  are  wondering  what 
we  are  now  doing,  and  speculating  upon  the 
scribbler  with  arch  eyes  and  elevated  crest,  as 
if  you  would  know  the  subject  of  his  lucubra- 
tions. What  the  wiser  or  better  would st  thou 
be  of  human  knowledge !  Sometimes  thai 
little  heart  of  thine  goes  pit-a-pat,  when  a  great 
Bgly.  staring  contributor  thrusts  his  inquisi- 
tire  nose  within  the  wires — or  when  a  strange 
cat  glides  round  and  round  the  room,  fascinat- 
ing thee  with  the  glare  of  his  fierce  fixed  eyes : 
bat  what  is  all  that  to  the  woes  of  an  Editor! — 
Yes,  sweet  simpleton  I  do  you  not  know  that 
we  are  the  Editor  of  Blackwood's  ilagazine — 
Christopher  >'onh !  Tes,  indeed,  we  are  that 
Tciy  man — that  selfsame  much-calumoiated 
man-monster  and  Ogre,  There,  there ! — perch 
on  onr  shoulder,  and  let  ns  langb  together  at 
the  whole  world. 


i  SECOND  CANTICLE. 

The  Goldex  Eagle  leads  the  van  of  onr 
Birds  of  Prey — and  there  she  sits  in  her  usual 
carriage  when  in  a  state  of  rest.  Her  hunger 
and  her  thirst  have  been  appeased — her  wings 
are  folded  up  in  a  dignified  tranquillity — her 
talons,  grasping  a  leafless  branch,  are  almost 
hidden  by  the  feathers  of  her  breast — her  sleep- 
less eye  has  lost  something  of  its  ferocitj' — and 
the  Royal  Bird  is  almost  serene  in  her  solitary 
state  on  the  clifi".  The  gorcock  unalarmed 
crows  among  the  moors  and  mosses — the 
blackbird  whistles  in  the  birken  shaw — and 
'  the  cony  erects  his  ears  at  the  mouth  of  his 
burrow,  and  whisks  away  frolicsome  among 
j  the  whins  or  heather. 

I  There  is  no  index  to  the  hour — neither  light 
I  nor  shadow — no  cloud-  But  from  the  com- 
'  posed  aspect  of  the  Bird,  we  may  suppose  it  to 
'  be  the  hush  of  evening  after  a  day  of  success- 
ful foray.  The  imps  in  the  eyrie  have  been 
'  fed,  and  their  hungry  cry  will  not  be  heard  till 
the  dawn.  The  mother  has  there  taken  up  her 
'  watchful  rest,  till  in  darkness  she  may  glide  up 
i  to  her  brood — the  sire  is  somewhere  sitting 
!  within  her  view  among  the  rocks — a  sentinel 
i  whose  eye,  and  ear,  and  nostril  are  true,  in  ei- 
I  quisite  fineness  of  sense,  to  their  trust,  and  on 
I  whom  rarely,  and  as  if  by  a  miracle,  can  steal 
!  the  adventurous  shepherd  or  huntsman,  to 
'  wreak  vengeance  with  his  rifle  on  the  spoiler 
'  of  sheejvwalk  and  forest-chase. 

Yet  sometimes  it  chanceth  that  the  yellow 
,  lustre  of  her  keen,  wild,  fierce  eye  is  veiled, 
even  in  daylight,  by  the  film  of  sleep.    Perhaps 
sickness  has  been  at  the  heart  of  the  dejected 
f  bird,  or  fever  wasted  her  wing.    The  sun  may 
I  have  smitten    her,  or  the   storm  driven   her 
I  against  a  rock-     Then   hunger  and  thirst — 
I  which,  in  pride  of  plumage  she  scorned,  and 
!  which  only  made  her  fiercer  on  the  edge  of  her 
I  unfed  evrie,  a?  she  whetted  her  teak  on  the 
flint-stone,  and  clutched   the  strong   heather- 
'  stalks  in  her  talons,  as  if  she  were  anticipating 
prev— quell  her  courage,  and  in  famine  she 
eves  afar  off  the  fowls  she  is  unable  to  pursue, 
'  and  with  one  stroke  strike  to  earth-    Her  flight 
is  heavier  and  heavier  each  succeeding  day — 
( she  ventures  net  to  cross  the  great  glens  with 
'  or  without  lochs — but  flaps  her  way  from  rock 
'.  to  rock,  lower  and  lower  down  along  the  same 
mountain-side — and    finally,    draw_    by    her 
weakness  into  dangerous  descent,  «he  is  dis- 
covered at  gray  dawn  far  below  the  region  of 
snow,  assailed  and  insulted  by  the  meanest 
carrion ;   till  a  bullet  whizzing  through  her 
heart,  down  she  topples,  and  soon  is  despatch- 
ed by  blows  from  the  rifle-butt,  the  shepherd 
stretching  out  his  foe's  carcass  on  the  sward, 
eight  feet  from  wing  tip  to  wing  tip,  with  leg 
thick  as  his  own  wrist,  and  foot  broad  as  hi:; 
own  hand- 
But  behold  the  Golden  Eag'.e,  as  she  has. 
pounc-ed,  and  is  exulting  over  her  prey !   With 
her  head  drawn  back  between  the  crescent  of 
her  uplifted  wings,  which  she  will  not  fold  tili 
that  prey  be  devoured,  eye  giaricg  cruel  joy, 
neck-plumage  bristling,  tail-feathers  fan-spread. 
fl-nd  talons  driven  throog^h  the  rictim's  ena-ails 


214 


RECREATIONS   OF   CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


and  heart — there  she  is  new-lighted  on  the 
ledge  of  a  precipice,  and  fancy  hears  her  yell 
and  its  echo.  Beak  and  talons,  all  her  life 
long,  have  had  a  stain  of  blood,  for  the  mur- 
deress observes  no  Sabbath,  and  seldom  dips 
them  in  loch  or  sea,  except  when  dashing 
down  suddenly  among  the  terrified  water-fowl 
from  her  watch-tower  in  the  sky.  The  week- 
old  fawn  had  left  the  doe's  side  but  for  a  mo- 
mentary race  along  the  edge  of  the  coppice  ;  a 
rustle  and  a  shadow — and  the  burden  is  borne 
off  to  the  cliffs  of  Bcnevis.  In  an  instant  the 
small  animal  is  dead — after  a  short  exultation 
torn  into  pieces,  and  by  eagles  and  eaglets  de- 
voured, its  unswallowed  or  undigested  bones 
mingle  with  those  of  many  other  creatures, 
encumbering  the  eyrie,  and  strewed  around  it 
over  the  bloody  platform  on  which  the  young 
demons  crawl  forth  to  enjoy  the  sunshine. 

Oh  for  the  Life  of  an  Eagle  written  by  him- 
self! It  would  outsell  the  Confessions  even 
of  the  English  Opium-Eater.  Proudly  would 
he,  or  she,  write  of  birth  and  parentage.  On 
the  rock  of  ages  he  first  opened  his  eyes  to  the 
sun,  in  noble  instinct  affronting  and  uutstaring 
the  light.  The  Great  Glen  of  Scotland — halli 
it  not  been  the  inheritance  of  his  ancestors  for 
many  thousand  years?  No  polluting  mixture 
of  ignoble  blood,  from  intermarriages  of  neces- 
sity or  convenience  with  kite,  buzzard,  hawk, 
or  falcon.  No,  ihe  Golden  E;igle  of  Glen-Fal- 
loch,  surnamed  the  Sun-starers,  have  formed 
alliances  with  the  Golden  Eagles  of  Cruachan, 
Benlawers,  Shehallion,  and  Lochnagair — the 
Lightning-Glints,  the  Flood-fallers,  the  Storm- 
wheelers,  the  Cloud-cleavers,  ever  since  the 
deluge.  The  educavion  of  the  autobiographer 
had  not  been  intrusted  to  a  private  tutor.  Pa- 
rental eyes,  beaks,  and  talons,  provided  sus- 
tenance for  his  infant  frame;  and  in  that  capa- 
cious eyrie,  year  after  year  repaired  by  dry 
branches  from  the  desert,  parental  advice  was 
yelled  into  him,  meet  for  the  expansion  of  his 
inst.nct,  as  wide  and  wonderful  as  the  reason 
of  earth-crawling  man.  What  a  noble  natu- 
ralist did  he,  in  a  single  session  at  the  College 
of  the  Cliff,  become!  Of  the  customs,  and 
habits,  and  haunts  of  all  inferior  creatures,  he 
speedily  made  himself  master — ours  included. 
Nor  was  his  knowledge  confined  to  theory,  but 
reduced  to  daily  practice.  He  kept  himself  in 
constant  training — taking  a  flight  of  a  couple 
of  hundred  miles  before  breakfast — paying  a 
forenoon  visit  to  the  farthest  of  the  Hebride 
Isles,  and  returning  to  dinner  in  Glcnco.  In 
one  day  he  has  flown  to  Norway  on  a  visit  to 
his  uncle  by  the  mother's  side,  and  returned 
the  next  to  comfort  his  paternal  uncle,  lying 
sick  at  the  Head  of  the  Cambrian  Dee.  He 
soon  learned  to  despise  himself  for  having  once 
yelled  for  food,  when  food  was  none ;  and  to 
sit  or  sail,  on  rock  or  through  ether,  athirst  and 
an  hungered,  but  mute.  'The  virtues  of  pa- 
tience, endurance,  and  fortitude,  have  become 
with  him,  in  strict  accordance  with  the  Aris- 
totelian Moral  Philosophy — habits.  A  Peri- 
patetic Philosopher  he  could  hardly  be  called 
— properly  speaking,  he  belongs  to  the  Solar 
School — an  airy  sect,  who  take  very  high 
ground,  indulge  in  lofty  flights,  and  are  often 
i(i«t   in   the   clouds.      Now  and  then  a  light 


chapter  might  be  introduced,  setting  forth  how 
he  and  other  youngsters  of  the  Blood  Royal 
were  wont  to  take  an  occasional  game  at  High- 
Jinks,  or  tourney  in  air  lists,  the  champions  on 
opposite  sides  flying  from  the  Perthshire  and 
from  the  Argyleshire  mountains,  and  encoun- 
tering with  a  clash  in  the  azure  common,  six 
thousand  feet  high.  But  the  fever  of  love 
burned  in  his  blood,  and  flying  to  the  moun- 
tains of  another  continent,  in  obedience  to  the 
yell  of  an  old  oral  tradition,  he  wooed  and  won 
his  virgin  bride — a  monstrous  beauty,  wider- 
winged  than  himself,  to  kill  or  caress,  and 
bearing  the  proof  of  her  noble  nativity  in  the 
radiant  Iris  that  belongs  in  perfection  of  fierce- 
ness but  to  the  Sun-starers,  and  in  them  is 
found,  unimpaired  by  cloudiest  clime,  over  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth.  The  bridegroom 
and  his  bride,  during  the  hone)'-moon,  slept  ou 
the  naked  ruck — till  they  had  built  their  eyrie 
beneath  its  clitf-canopy  on  the  mountain-brow. 
When  Ihe  bride  was  "  as  Eagles  wish  to  be 
who  love  their  lords" — devoted  unto  her  was 
the  bridegroom,  even  as  the  cushat  murmuring 
to  his  brooding  mate  in  Ihe  central  pine-grove 
of  a  forest.  Tenderly  did  he  drop  from  his 
talons,  close  beside  her  beak,  the  delicate  spring 
lamb,  or  the  too  early  leveret,  owing  to  the 
hurried  and  imprudent  marriage  of  its  parents 
before  March,  buried  in  a  living  tomb  on 
April's  closing  day.  Through  all  thy  glens, 
Albin  !  had.^t  ihou  reason  to  mourn,  at  the 
bursting  of  the  shells  that  Queen-bird  had  been 
cherishing  beneath  her  bosom.  Aloft  in  heaven 
wheeled  the  Royal  Pair,  from  rising  to  setting 
sun.  Among  the  bright-blooming  heather  they 
espied  the  tartan'd  shepherd,  or  hunter  creep- 
ing like  a  lizard,  and  from  behind  the  vain 
shadow  of  a  rock  watching  with  his  rifle  the 
flight  he  would  fain  see  shorn  of  its  beams. 
The  flocks  were  thinned — and  the  bleating  of 
desolate  dams  among  the  woolly  people  heard 
from  many  a  brae.  Poison  was  strewn  over 
Ihe  glens  for  their  destruction,  but  the  Eagle, 
like  the  lion,  preys  not  on  carcasses;  and  the 
shepherd  dogs  howled  in  agony  over  the  car- 
rion in  which  they  devoured  death.  Ha!  was 
not  that  a  day  of  triumph  to  the  Sun-starers  of 
Cruachan,  when  sky-hunting  in  couples,  far 
down  on  the  greensward  before  the  ruined 
gateway  of  Kilchurn  Castle,  they  saw,  left  all 
to  himself  in  the  sunshine,  the  infant  heir  of 
the  Campbell  of  Breadalbane,  the  child  of  the 
Lord  of  Glenorchy  and  all  its  streams  I  Four 
talons  in  an  instant  were  in  his  heart.  Too 
late  were  the  outcries  from  all  the  turrets;  for 
ere  the  castle-gates  were  flung  open,  the  golden 
head  of  the  royal  babe  was  lying  in  gore,  in 
the  Eyrie  on  the  iron  ramparts  of  Ben  Slarive 
— his  blue  eyes  dug  out — his  rosy  cheeks  torn 
— and  his  brains  dropping  from  beaks  that 
revelled  yelling  within  the  skull! — Such  are  a 
few  hints  for  "Some  Passages  in  the  Life  of 
the  Golden  Eagle,  written  by  Himself," — in 
one  volume  crown  octavo— Blackwoods,  Edin- 
burgh and  London. 

O  heavens  and  earth! — forests  and  barn- 
yards! what  a  difference  with  a  distinction 
between  a  CJoLnEN  Eaole  ami  a  Giir.r.x  Goose! 
There,  all  neck  and  bottom,  splay-footed,  and 
hissing  in  miserable  imitation  of  a  serpent. 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


215 


lolling  from  side  to  side,  up  and  down  like  an 
ill-trimmed  punt,  the  downy  gosling  waddles 
through  the  green  mire,  and,  imagining  that 
King  George  the  Fourth  is  meditating  mischief 
against  him,  cackles  angrily  as  he  plunges 
into  the  pond.  No  swan  that  "  on  still  St. 
Mary's  lake  floats  double,  swan  and  shadow," 
so  proud  as  he  !  He  prides  himself  on  being 
a  gander,  and  never  forgets  the  lesson  instilled 
into  him  by  his  parents,  soon  as  he  chipt  the 
shell  in  the  nest  among  the  nettles,  that  his 
ancestors  saved  the  Roman  Capitol.  In  pro- 
cess of  lime,  in  company  with  swine,  he  grazes 
on  the  common,  and  insults  the  Egyptians  in 
their  roving  camp.  Then  comes  the  season 
of  plucking — and  this  very  pen  bears  testi- 
mony to  his  tortures.  Out  into  the  houseless 
winter  is  he  driven — and,  if  he  escapes  being 
frozen  into  a  lump  of  fat  ice,  he  is  crammed 
till  his  liver  swells  into  a  four-pounder — his 
cerebellum  is  cut  by  the  cruel  knife  of  a  phre- 
nological cook,  and  his  remains  buried  with  a 
cerement  of  apple  sauce  in  the  paunches  of 
apoplectic  aldermen,  eating  against  each  other 
at  a  civic  feast!  Such  are  a  few  hints  for 
"  Some  Passages  in  the  Life  of  a  Green 
Goose,"  written  by  himself — in  foolscap  oc- 
tavo— published  by  Quack  and  Co.,  Ludgate 
Lane,  and  sold  by  all  booksellers  in  town  and 
country. 

Poor  poets  must  not  meddle  with  eagles. 
In  the  Fall  of  Nineveh,  Mr.  Atherstone  describes 
a  grand  review  of  his  army  by  Sardanapalus. 
Two  million  men  are  put  into  motion  by  the 
moving  of  the  Assyrian  flag-staff  in  the  hand 
of  the  king,  who  takes  his  station  on  a  mount 
conspicuous  to  all  the  arm)'.  This  flag-staff, 
though  "  tall  as  a  mast" — Mr.  Atherstone  does 
not  venture  to  go  on  to  say  with  Milton, 
"hewn  on  Norwegian  hills,"  or  "  of  some  tall 
ammiral,"  though  the  readers'  minds  supply 
the  dcficienc}' — this  mast  was,  we  are  told,  for 
"  two  strong  men  a  task  ;"  but  it  must  have  been 
so  for  twenty.  To  have  had  the  least  chance 
of  being  all  at  once  seen  by  two  million  of 
men,  it  could  not  have  been  less  than  fifty  feet 
high — and  if  Sardanapalus  waved  the  royal 
standard  of  Assyria  round  his  head,  Samson 
or  O'Doherty  must  have  been  a  joke  to  him. 
However,  we  shall  suppose  he  did;  and  what 
was  the  result  1  Such  shouts  arose  that  the 
solid  walls  of  Nineveh  were  shook,  "and  the 
firm  ground  made  tremble."  But  this  was 
not  all. 

"At  his  height, 
A  speck  scarce  visible,  the  eagle  heard, 
And  felt  his  strong  wing  falter  :  torror-struck, 
Flutlerinir  and  wildly  screaming,  down  he  sank — 
Down  through  the  quivering  air :  another  shout, — 
His  talons  droop — his  sunny  eye  grows  dark — 
His  strenglhless  pennons  fail — plump  down  he  falls, 
Even  like  a  stone.     Amid  the  far-off  hills. 
With  eye  of  fire,  and  shaggy  mane  uprear'd, 
The  sleeping  lion  in  his  den  sprang  up  ; 
Listened  awhile— then  laid  his  monstrous  mouth 
Close  to  the  floor,  and  hreatli'd  hot  roarings  out 
In  fierce  reply." 

What  think  ye  of  that,  John  Audubon, 
Charles  Bonaparte,  J.  Prideaux  Selb}-,  James 
Wilson,  Sir  William  Jardine,  and  ye  other  Eu- 
ropean and  American  ornithologists  1  Pray, 
Mr.  Atherstone,  did  you  ever  see  an  eagle — a 
speck  in  the  sky?  Never  again  suffer  your- 
self, oh,  dear  sir !  to  believe  old  women's  tales 


of  men  on  earth  shooting  eagles  with  theii 
mouths  ;  because  the  thing  is  impossible,  even 
had  their  mouthpieces  had  percussion-locks— 
had  they  been  crammed  with  ammunition  to 
the  muzzle.  Had  a  stray  sparrow  been  flut- 
tering in  the  air,  he  would  certainly  have  got 
a  fright,  and  probably  a  fall — nor  would  there 
have  been  any  hope  for  a  torn-tit.  But  an 
eagle — an  eagle  ever  so  many  thousand  feet 
aloft — poo,  poo  ! — he  would  merely  have  muted 
on  the  roaring  multitude,  and  given  Sardana- 
palus an  additional  epaulette.  Why,  had  a 
string  of  wild-geese  at  the  time  been  warping 
their  way  on  the  wind,  they  v/ould  merely  have 
shot  the  wedge  firmer  and  sharper  into  the  air, 
and  answered  the  earth-born  shout  with  an 
air-born  gabble — clangour  to  clangour.  Where 
were  Mr.  Atherstone's  powers  of  ratiocination, 
and  all  his  acoustics?  Two  shouts  slew  an 
eagle.  What  became  of  all  the  other  denizens 
of  air — especially  crows,  ravens,  and  vultures, 
who,  seeing  two  millions  of  men,  must  have 
come  flocking  against  a  day  of  battle  1  Every 
mother's  son  of  them  must  have  gone  to  pot. 
Then  what  scrambling  among  the  allied  troops ! 
And  what  was  one  eagle  doing  by  himself  "up- 
by  yonder?"  Was  he  the  only  eagle  in  Assy- 
ria— the  secular  bird  of  ages?  Who  was 
looking  at  him,  first  a  speck — then  falterin? — 
then  fluttering  and  wildly  screaming — then 
plump  down  like  a  stone  ?  Mr.  Atherstone 
talks  as  if  he  saw  it.  In  the  circumstances 
he  had  no  business  with  his  "  sunny  eye  grow- 
ing dark."  That  is  entering  too  much  into 
the  medical,  or  rather  anatomical  symptoms 
of  his  apoplexy,  and  would  be  better  for  a  me- 
dical journal  than  an  epic  poem.  But  to  be 
done  with  it — two  shouts  that  slew  an  eagle  a 
mile  up  the  sky,  must  have  cracked  all  the 
tympana  of  the  two  million  shouters.  The 
entire  army  must  have  become  as  deaf  as  a 
post.  Nay,  Sardanapalus  himself,  on  the 
mount,  must  have  been  blown  into  the  air  as 
by  the  explosion  of  a  range  of  gunpowder- 
mills  ;  the  campaign  taken  a  new  turn  ;  and  a 
revolution  been  brought  about,  of  which,  at 
this  distance  of  place  and  time,  it  is  not  easy 
for  us  to  conjecture  what  might  have  been  the 
fundamental  features  on  which  it  would  have 
hinged — and  thus  an  entirely  new  aspect  given 
to  all  the  histories  of  the  world. 

What  is  said  about  the  lion,  is  to  our  minds 
equally  picturesque  and  absurd.  He  was 
among  the  "  far-off  hills."  How  far,  pray? 
Twenty  miles  ?  If  so  then,  without  a  silver 
ear-trumpet  he  could  not  have  heard  the  huz- 
zas. If  the  far-off  hills  were  so  near  Nineveh 
as  to  allow  the  lion  to  hear  the  huzzas  even 
in  his  sleep,  the  epithet  "  far-off"  should  be 
altered,  and  the  lion  himself  brought  from  the 
interior.  But  we  cannot  believe  that  lions 
were  permitted  to  live  in  dens  within  ear-shot 
of  Nineveh.  Nimrod  had  taught  them  "never 
to  come  there  no  more" — and  Semiramis  looked 
sharp  after  the  suburbs.  But,  not  to  insist  un- 
duly upon  a  mere  matter  of  police,  is  it  the 
nature  of  lions,  lying  in  their  dens  among  far- 
off  hills,  to  start  up  from  their  sleep,  and 
"  breathe  hot  roarings  out "  in  fierce  reply  to 
the  shouts  of  armies?  All  stuff!  Mr.  Ather- 
stone shows  off  his  knowledge  of  natural  his- 


216 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


tor}',  in  telling  us  that  the  said  lion,  in  roaring, 
"laid  his  monstrous  mouth  close  to  the  floor." 
We  believe  he  does  so  ;  but  did  Mr.  Atherstone 
learn  the  fact  from  Cuvierorfrom  Wombwell? 
It  is  always  dangerous  to  a  poet  to  be  too 
picturesque  ;  and  in  this  case,  you  are  made, 
whether  you  will  or  no,  to  see  an  old,  red,  lean, 
mangy  monster,  called  a  lion,  in  his  unhappy 
den  in  a  menagerie,  bathing  his  beard  in  the 
saw-dust,  and  from  his  toothless  jaws  "breath- 
ing hot  roarings  out,"  to  the  terror  of  servant- 
girls  and  children,  in  fierce  repl}'  to  a  man  in 
a  hairy  cap  and  full  suit  of  velveteen,  stirring 
him  up  with  a  long  pole,  and  denominating 
him  by  the  sacred  name  of  the  great  asserter 
of  Scottish  independence. 

Sir  Humphry  Davy — in  his  own  science  the 
first  man  of  his  age — docs  not  shine  in  his 
"Salmonia" — pleasant  volume  though  it  be — 
as  an  ornithologist.     Let  us  see. 

"PoiKT. — The  scenery  improves  as  we  ad- 
vance nearer  the  lower  parts  of  the  lake.  The 
mountains  become  higher,  and  that  small 
island  or  peninsula  presents  a  bold  craircy 
outline  ;  and  the  birch-wood  below  it,  and  the 
pines  above,  make  a  scene  somewhat  Alpine 
in  character.  But  what  is  that  large  bird 
soaring  above  the  pointed  rock,  towards  the 
end  of  the  lake  ?     Surely  it  is  an  eagle  ! 

"Hal. — You  are  right ;  it  is  an  eagle,  and 
of  a  rare  and  peculiar  species — the  gray  or 
silver  eagle,  a  noble  bird  !  From  the  size  of 
the  animal,  it  must  be  the  female  ;  and  her 
eyrie  is  that  high  rock.  I  dare  say  the  male 
is  not  far  off." 

Sir  Humphry .  speaks  in  his  introductory 
pages  of  Mr.  Wordsworth  as  a  lover  of  fishing 
and  fishermen;  and  wc  cannot  help  thinking 
and  feeling  that  he  intends  Poietes  as  an  image 
of  that  great  Poet.  What !  William  Words- 
worth, tlie  very  high-priest  of  nature,  repre- 
sented to  have  seen  an  eagle  for  the  first  lime 
in  his  life  only  then,  and  to  have  boldly  ven- 
tured on  a  conjecture  that  such  was  the  name 
and  nature  of  the  bird!  "But  what  is  that 
large  bird  soaring  above  the  pointed  rock,  to- 
wards the  end  of  the  lake  ?  Surely  it  is  an 
eagle!"  "Yes,  you  are  right— it  is  an  eagle." 
Ha — ha — ha — ha — ha — ha  !  Sir  Humphry — 
Sir  Humphry — that  gufl^aw  was  not  ours — it 
came  from  the  Bard  of  Rydal — albeit  unused 
to  the  laughing  mood — in  the  haunted  twilight 
of  that  beautiful — that  solemn  Terrace. 

Poietes  having  been  confirmed,  by  the  au- 
thority of  Halieus,  in  his  belief  that  the  bird 
is  an  eagle,  exclaims,  agreeably  to  the  part  he 
plays,  "  Look  at  the  bird  !  She  dashes  into  the 
water,  /a//iHg  like  a  rock  and  raising  a  column 
of  spray — she  has  fallen  from  a  great  height. 
And  now  she  rises  again  into  the  air — ichnt  an 
extraordinary  $i<Jit !"  Nothing  is  so  annoying 
as  to  be  ordered  to  look  at  a  sight  which,  un- 
less you  shut  your  eyes,  it  is  impo'=sible  for 
_V0u  not  to  sec.  A  person  behaving  in  a  boat 
like  Poietes,  deserved  being  flung  overboard. 
"  Jiook  at  the  bird  !"  Why,  every  eye  was 
already  upon  her;  and  if  Poietes  had  had  a 
single  spark  of  poetry  in  his  composition,  he 
would  have  been  struck  mute  by  such  a  sight, 
instead  of  bawling  out,  open-mouthed  and 
goggle-eyed,  like  a   Cockney  to   a   rocket  at 


Vauxhall.  Besides,  an  eagle  does  not,  when 
descending  on  her  prey,  fall  like  a  rock.  There 
is  nothing  like  the  "  vis  inertia'"  in  her  pre- 
cipitation. You  still  see  the  self-willed  energy 
of  the  ravenous  bird,  as  the  mass  of  plumes 
flashes  in  the  spray — of  which,  by  the  by,  there 
never  was,  nor  will  be,  a  column  so  raised. 
She  is  as  much  the  queen  of  birds  as  she  sinks 
as  when  she  soars — her  trust  and  her  power 
are  still  seen  and  felt  to  be  in  her  pinions, 
whether  she  shoots  to  or  from  the  zenith — to 
a  falling  star  she  might  be  likened — just  as 
any  other  devil — either  by  Milton  or  Words- 
worth— for  such  a  star  seems  to  our  eye  and 
our  imagination  ever  instinct  with  spirit,  not 
to  be  impelled  by  exterior  force,  but  to  be  self- 
shot  from  heaven. 

Upon  our  word,  we  begin  to  believe  that  we 
ourselves  deserve  the  name  of  Poietes  much 
better  than  the  gentleman  who  at  threescore 
had  never  seen  an  eagle.  "  She  has  fallen 
from  a  great  height,"  quoth  the  gentleman^ 
"What  an  extraordinary  sight  !"he  continueth 
— while  we  are  mute  as  the  oar  suspended  by 
the  up-gazing  Celt,  Avhose  quiet  eye  brightens 
as  it  pursues  the  Bird  to  her  eyrie  in  the  cliff 
over  the  cove  where  the  red-deer  feed. 

Poietes  having  given  vent  to  his  emotions 
in  such  sublime  exclamations — "  Look  at  the 
bird!"  "  What  an  extraordinary  sight!"  might 
have  thenceforth  held  his  tongue,  and  said  no 
more  about  eagles.  But  Halieus  cries,  "  There ! 
you  sec  her  rise  with  a  fish  in  her  talons" — 
and  Poietes,  very  simply,  or  rather  like  a 
simpleton,  returns  for  answer,  "She  gives  an 
interest  whirh  I  hardly  c.rpected  to  have  found  in 
thin  srene.  Pray,  are  there  many  of  these  animals 
in  this  country  ?"  A  poet  hardly  expecting  to 
find  interest  in  snch  a  scene  as  a  great  High- 
land loch — Loch  Maree!  "  Pray,  are  there  many 
nf  these  hiniintah  in  this  country  ?"  Loud  cries  of 
Oh  !  oh  !  oh  !  No  doubt  an  eagle  is  an  ani- 
mal;  like  Mr.  Cobbett  or  .Mr.  O'Connell  "a 
very  fine  animal;"  but  wc  particularly,  and 
earnestly,  and  anxiously,  request  Sir  Humphry 
Davy  not  to  call  her  so  again — but  to  use  the 
term  bird,  or  any  other  term  he  chooses,  ex- 
cept animal.  Animal,  a  living  creature,  is  too 
general,  too  vague  by  far ;  and  somehow  or 
other  it  offends  our  ear  shockingly  when  ap- 
plied to  an  eagle.  We  may  be  wrong,  but  in 
a  trifling  matter  of  this  kind  Sir  Humphry 
surely  will  not  refuse  our  supplication.  Let 
him  call  a  horse  an  animal,  if  he  chooses — or 
an  ass — or  a  cow — but  not  an  eagle — as  he 
loves  us,  not  an  eagle; — let  him  call  it  a  bird 
— the  Bird  of  Jove — the  Queen  or  King  of  the 
Sky — or  any  thing  else  he  chooses — but  not  an 
animal — no — no — no — not  an  animal,  as  he 
hopes  to  prosper,  to  be  praised  in  Maga,  em- 
balmed and  immortalized. 

Neither  ought  Poietes  to  have  asked  if  there 
were  ''many  of  these  animals"  in  this  country. 
He  ought  to  have  known  that  there  are  not 
inany  of  these  animals  in  any  country.  Eagles 
are  proud — apt  to  hold  their  heads  very  high 
— and  to  make  themselves  scarce.  A  great 
many  eagles  all  flying  about  together  would 
look  most  absurd.  They  are  aware  of  that, 
and  fly  in  "  ones  and  twos" — a  couple  perhaps 
to  a  county.     Poietes  might  as  well  have  asked 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


217 


Mungo  Park  if  there  were  a  great  many  lions 
in  Africa.  Mungo,  we  tliink,  saw  but  one; 
and  that  was  one  too  much.  There  were  pro- 
bably a  few  more  between  Sego  and  Timbuc- 
too — but  there  are  not  a  "  great  many  of  those 
animals  in  that  country" — though  quite  suffi- 
cient for  the  purpose.  How  the  Romans  con- 
trived to  get  at  hundreds  for  a  single  show, 
perplexes  our  power  of  conjecture. 

Halieus  says — with  a  smile  on  his  lip  surely 
— in  answer  to  the  query  of  Poietes — "  Of  this 
species  I  have  seen  but  these  two;  and,  I  be- 
lieve, the  young  ones  migrate  as  soon  as  they 
can  provide  for  themselves ;  for  this  solitary 
bird  requires  a  large  space  to  move  and  feed 
in,  and  does  not  allow  its  offspring  to  partake 
its  reign,  or  to  live  near  it."  This  is  all  pretty 
true,  and  known  to  every  child  rising  or  risen 
six,  except  poor  Poietes.  He  had  imagined 
that  there  were  "  many  of  these  animals  in  this 
country,"  that  they  all  went  a-fishing  together 
as  amicably  as  five  hundred  sail  of  Manksmen 
among  a  shoal  of  herrings. 

Throughout  these  Dialogues  we  have  ob- 
served that  Ornither  rarely  opens  his  mouth. 
Why  so  taciturn]  On  the  subject  of  birds  he 
ought,  from  his  name,  to  be  well  informed; 
and  how  could  he  let  slip  an  opportunity,  such 
as  will  probably  never  be  afforded  him  again 
in  this  life,  of  being  eloquent  on  the  Silver 
Eagle  ?  Ornithology  is  surely  the  department 
of  Ornither.  Yet  there  is  evidently  something 
odd  and  peculiar  in  his  idiosyncrasy;  for  we 
observe  that  he  never  once  alludes  to  "these 
animals,"  birds,  during  the  whole  excursion. 
He  has  not  taken  his  gun  with  him  into  the 
Highlands,  a  sad  oversight  indeed  in  a  gentle- 
man who  "  is  to  be  regarded  as  generally  fond 
of  the  sports  of  the  field."  Flappers  are  plen- 
tiful over  all  the  moors  about  the  middle  of 
July  ;  and  hoodies,  owls,  hawks,  ravens,  make 
all  first-rate  shooting  to  sportsmen  not  over 
anxious  about  the  pot.  It  is  to  be  presumed, 
too,  that  he  can  stuff  birds.  What  noble  spe- 
cimens might  he  not  have  shot  for  Mr.  Selby ! 
On  one  occasion,  "the  Silver  Eagle"  is 
preying  in  a  pool  within  slug  range,  and  there 
is  some  talk  of  shooting  him — we  suppose  with 
an  oar,  or  the  Ijutt  of  a  fishing-rod,  for  the  party 
have  no  fire-arms — but  Poietes  insists  on  spar- 
ing his  life,  because  "these  animals"  are  a 
picturesque  accompaniment  to  the  scenery, 
and  "  give  it  an  interest  which  he  had  not  ex- 
pected to  find  "  in  mere  rivers,  lochs,  moors, 
and  mountains.  Genus  Falco  must  all  the 
while  have  been  laughing  in  his  sleeve  at  the 
whole  party — particularly  at  Ornither — who, 
to  judge  from  his  general  demeanour,  may  be 
a  fair  shot  with  number  five  at  an  old  news- 
paper expanded  on  a  barn-door  twenty  yards 
off,  but  never  could  have  had  the  audacity  to 
think  in  his  most  ambitious  mood  of  letting 
oflThis  gun  at  an  Eagle. 

But  farther,  Halieus,  before  he  took  upon 
him  to  speak  so  authoritatively  about  eagles, 
should  have  made  himself  master  of  their 
names  and  natures.  He  is  manifestly  no  sci- 
entific ornithologist.  We  are.  The  general 
question  concerning  Eagles  in  Scotland  may 
now  be  squeezed  into  very  small  compass. 
Exclusive  of  the  true  Osprey,  (Falco  Halias- 
28 


tus,)  which  is  rather  a  large  fishing-hawk  than 
an  eagle,  there  are  two  kinds,  viz. — the  Goldeit 
Eagle,  (F.  Chrysaetos,)  and  the  White-Tailed 
or  CixERors  Eagle,  (F.  Albicilla.)  The  other 
two  nomimil  species  are  disposed  of  in  the  fol- 
lowing manner: — First,  the  Ring-Tailed  Ea- 
gle (F.  Fulvus)  is  the  young  of  the  Golden 
Eagle,  being  distinguished  in  early  life  by 
having  the  basal  and  central  portion  of  the  tail 
white,  which  colour  disappears  as  the  bird  at- 
tains the  adult  state.  Second,  the  Sea  Eagle, 
(F.  Ossifragus,)  commonly  so  called,  is  the 
young  of  the  White-tailed  Eagle  above  named, 
from  which  it  differs  in  having  a  brown  tail; 
for  in  this  species  the  white  of  the  tail  be- 
comes every  year  more  apparent  as  the  bird 
increases  in  age,  whereas,  in  the  Golden  Ea- 
gle, the  white  altogether  disappears  in  the 
adult. 

It  is  to  the  Ring-Tailed  Eagle,  and,  by  con- 
sequence, to  the  Golden  Eagle,  that  the  name 
of  Black  Eagle  is  applied  in  the  Highlands. 

The  White-tailed  or  Sea  Eagle,  as  it  be- 
comes old,  attains,  in  addition  to  the  pure  tail, 
a  pale  or  bleached  appearance,  from  which  it 
may  merit  and  obtain  the  name  of  Gray  or 
Silver  Eagle,  as  Sir  Humphry  Davy  chooses 
to  call  it;  but  it  is  not  known  among  natural- 
ists by  that  name.  There  is  no  other  species, 
however,  to  which  the  name  can  apply;  and, 
therefore,  Sir  Humphry  has  committed  the  very 
gross  mistake  of  calling  the  Gray  or  Silver 
Eagle  (to  use  his  own  nomenclature)  a  very 
rare  Eagle,  since  it  is  the  most  common  of  all 
the  Scots,  and  also — a  fortiori — of  all  the  En- 
glish Eagles — being  in  fact  the  Sea  Eagle  of 
the  Highlands. 

It  preys  often  on  fish  dead  or  alive;  but  not 
exclusively,  as  it  also  attacks  young  lambs, 
and  drives  off  the  ravens  from  carrion  prey, 
being  less  fastidious  in  its  diet  than  the  Golden- 
Eagle,  which  probably  kills  its  own  meat — 
and  has  been  known  to  carry  off  children  ;  for 
a  striking  account  of  one  of  which  hay-field 
robberies  you  have  but  a  few  minutes  to  wait. 

As  to  its  driving  off  its  young,  its  habits  are 
probably  similar  in  this  respect  to  other  birds 
of  prey,  none  of  which  appear  to  keep  together 
in  families  after  the  young  can  shift  for  them- 
selves ;  but  we  have  never  met  with  any  one 
who  has  seen  them  in  the  act  of  driving.  It  is 
stated  vaguely,  in  all  books,  of  all  eagles. 

As  to  it's  requiring  a  large  range  ti»  feed  in 
— we  have  only  to  remark  that,  from  the  pow- 
erful flight  of  these  birds,  and  the  wild  and 
barren  nature  of  the  countries  which  they  in- 
habit, there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  fly  far, 
and  "prey  in  distant  isles" — as  Thomson  has 
it;  but  Halieus  needed  not  have  stated  this  cir- 
cumstance as  a  character  of  this  peculiar  eagle 
— for  an  eagle  with  a  small  range  does  not 
exist ;  and  therefore  it  is  to  be  presumed  that 
they  require  a  large  one. 

Further,  all  this  being  the  case,  there  seems 
to  be  no  necessity  for  the  old  eagles  giving 
themselves  the  trouble  to  drive  off  the  young 
ones,  who  by  natural  instinct  will  fly  off  of 
their  own  accOrd,  as  soon  as  their  wings  can 
bear  them  over  the  sea.  If  an  eagle  were  so 
partial  to  his  native  vale,  as  never  on  any 
account,  hungry  or  thirsty,  drunk  or  sober,  to 


218 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


venture  into  the  next  parish,  vhy  then  the  old 
people  would  be  forced,  on  the  old  principle  of 
self-preservation,  to  pack  off  their  progeny  to 
bed  and  board  beyond  Benevis.  But  an  eagle 
is  a  Citizen  of  the  World.  He  is  friendly  to 
the  views  of  Mr.  Huskisson  on  the  Wool  Trade, 
the  Fisheries,  and  the  Colonies — and  acts  upon 
the  old  adage, 

"Every  bird  for  himself,  and  God  for  us  all !" 

To  conclude,  for  the  present,  this  branch  of 
our  subject,  we  beg  leave  humbly  to  express 
our  belief,  that  Sir  Humphry  Davy  never  saw 
the  Eagle,  by  him  called  the  Gray  or  Silver, 
hunting  for  fish  in  the  style  described  in  Sal- 
monia.  It  does  not  dislike  fish — but  it  is  not 
its  nature  to  keep  hunting  for  ihem  so,  not  in 
the  Highlands  at  least,  whatever  it  may  do  on 
American  continent  or  isles.  Sir  Humphry 
talks  of  the  bird  dashing  down  repeatedly  upon 
a  pool  within  shot  of  the  anglers.  We  have 
angled  fifty  times  in  the  Highlands  for  Sir 
Humphry's  once,  but  never  saw  nor  heard  of 
such  a  sight.  He  has  read  of  such  things,  and 
introduced  them  into  this  dialogue  for  the  sake 
of  efiect — all  quite  right  to  do — had  his  reading 
lain  among  trustworthy  Ornithologists.  The 
common  Eagle — which  he  ignoranlly,  as  we 
have  seen,  calls  so  rare — is  a  shy  bird,  as  all 
shepherds  know — and  is  seldom  within  range 
of  the  rifle.  Gorged  with  blood,  they  are  some- 
times run  in  upon  and  felled  with  a  staff  or 
club.  So  perished,  in  tiie  flower  of  his  age, 
that  Eagle  whose  feet  now  form  handles  to  the 
bell-ropes  of  our  Sanctum  at  Buchanan  Lodge 
— and  are  the  subject  of  a  clever  copy  of 
verses  by  Mullion,  entitled  "All  the  Talons." 

We  said  in  "  The  Moors,"  that  we  envied  not 
the  eagle  or  any  other  bird  his  wings,  and 
showed  cause  why  we  preferred  our  own  feet. 
Had  Puck  wings]  If  he  had,  we  retract,  and 
would  sport  Puck. 

Oberon. 

"  Fetch  me  this  herb — and  be  thou  here  again, 
Ere  the  Leviathan  can  swim  a  league." 

Puck. 

"I'll  put  a  girdle  iniind  about  tl.e  earth 
III  forty  minutes." 

How  infinitely  more  poetical  are  wings  like 
these  than  seven-league  boots !  We  declare, 
on  our  conscience,  that  we  would  not  accept 
the  present  of  a  pair  of  seven-league  boots  to- 
morrow— or,  if  we  did,  it  would  be  out  of  mere 
politeness  to  the  genie  who  might  press  them 
on  us,  and  the  wisest  thing  we  could  do  would 
be  to  lock  them  up  in  a  drawer  out  of  the  reach 
of  the  servants.  Suppose  that  we  wished  to 
walk  from  Clovenford  to  Innerleithen — why, 
with  seven-league  boots  on,  one  single  step 
would  take  us  up  to  Posso,  seven  miles  above 
Peebles  !  That  would  never  do.  By  mincing 
one's  steps,  indeed,  one  might  contrive  to  stop 
at  Innerleithen ;  but  suppose  a  gad-fly  were  to 
sting  one's  hip  at  the  Pirn — one  unintentional 
stride  would  deposit  Christopher  at  Drummel- 
zier,  and  another  over  the  Cruik.  and  far  away 
down  Annan  water!  Therefore,  there  is 
nothing  like  wings.  On  wings  you  can  flutter 
— and  glide — and  float  and  soar — now  like  a 
bummins-bird  among  the  flowers — now  like  a 


swan,  half  rowing,  half  sailing,  and  half  flying 
adown  a  river — now  like  an  eagle  afloat  in  the 
blue  ocean  of  heaven,  or  shooting  sunwards, 
invisible  in  excess  of  light — and  bidding  fare- 
well to  earth  and  its  humble  shadows.  "  O 
that  I  had  the  wings  of  a  dove,  that  I  might  flee 
away  and  be  at  rest !"  Who  hath  not,  in  some 
heavy  hour  or  other,  from  the  depth  of  his  very 
soul,  devoutl}- — passionatel}' — hopelessly — 
breathed  that  wish  to  escape  beyond  the  limits 
of  wo  and  sin — not  into  the  world  of  dream- 
less death ;  for  weary  though  the  immortal 
pilgrim  may  have  been,  never  desired  he  the 
doom  of  annihilation,  untroubled  although  it 
be,  shorn  of  all  the  attributes  of  being — but  he 
has  prayed  for  the  wings  of  the  dove,  because 
that  fair  creature,  as  she  wheeled  herself  away 
from  the  sight  of  human  dwellings,  has  seemed 
to  disappear  to  his  imagination  among  old 
glimmering  forests,  wherein  she  foldcth  her 
wing  and  falleth  gladly  asleep — and  therefore, 
in  those  agitated  times  when  the  spirits  of  men 
acknowledge  kindred  M-ilh  the  inferior  crea- 
tures, and  would  fain  interchange  with  them 
powers  and  qualities,  they  are  willing  even  to 
lay  down  their  intelligence,  their  reason,  their 
conscience  itself,  so  that  they  could  but  be 
blessed  with  the  faculty  of  escaping  from  all 
the  agonies  that  intelligence,  and  reason,  and 
conscience  alone  can  know,  and  beyond  the 
reach  of  this  world's  horizon  to  flee  away  and 
be  at  rest! 

Puck  says  he  will  put  a  girdle  round  about 
the  earth  in  forty  minutes.  At  what  rate  is 
that  per  second,  taking  the  circumference  of 
the  earth  at  27,000  miles,  more  or  less?  There 
is  a  question  fi)r  the  mechanics,  somewhat 
about  as  diflicult  of  solution  as  Lord  Brough- 
am's celebrated  one  of  the  Smuggler  and  the 
Revenue  Cutter — for  the  solution  of  which  he 
recommended  the  aid  of  algebra.  It  is  not  so 
quick  as  you  would  imagine.  We  forget  the 
usual  rale  of  a  cannon-ball  in  good  condition, 
when  he  is  in  training — and  before  he  is  at  all 
blown.  So  do  we  forget,  we  are  sorry  to  con- 
fess, the  number  of  centuries  that  it  would  take 
a  good,  stout,  well-made,  able-bodied  cannon- 
ball,  to  accomplish  a  journey  to  our  planet 
from  one  of  the  fixed  stars.  The  great  difli- 
culty,  we  confess,  would  be  to  get  him  safely 
conveyed  thither.  If  that  could  be  done,  we 
should  have  no  fear  of  his  finding  his  way 
back,  if  not  in  our  time,  in  that  of  our  poster- 
ity. However  red-hot  he  might  have  been  on 
starting,  he  would  be  cool  enough,  no  doubt, 
on  his  arrival  at  the  goal;  yet  we  should  have 
no  objection  to  back  him  against  Time  for  a 
trifle — Time,  we  observe,  in  almost  all  matches 
being  beat,  often  indeed  by  the  most  miserable 
hacks,  that  can  with  difliculty  raise  a  gallop. 
Time,  however,  possibly  runs  booty;  for  when 
he  does  make  play,  it  must  be  confessed  that 
he  is  a  spanker,  and  that  nothing  has  been  seen 
with  such  a  stride  since  Eclipse. 

O  beautiful  and  beloved  Highland  Parish  !  in 
whose  dashing  glens  our  beating  heart  first  felt 
the  awe  of  solitude,  and  learned  to  commune 
(alas!  to  what  purpose?)  with  the  tumult  of 
its  own  thoughts !  The  circuit  of  thy  skies 
was  indeed  a  glorious  arena  spread  over  the 
mountain-tops  for   the  combats  of  the  great 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


219 


birds  of  prey!  One  wild  cry  or  another  was 
in  the  lift — of  the  hawk,  or  the  glead,  or  the 
raven,  or  the  eagle — or  when  those  fiends  slept, 
of  the  peaceful  heron,  and  sea-bird  by  wander- 
ing boys  pursued  in  its  easy  flight,  till  the 
snow-white  child  of  ocean  wavered  away  far 
inland,  as  if  in  search  of  a  steadfast  happiness 
unknown  on  the  restless  waves.  Seldom  did 
the  eagle  stoop  to  the  challenge  of  the  inferior 
fowl ;  but  when  he  did,  it  was  like  a  mailed 
knight  treading  down  unknown  men  in  battle. 
The  hawks,  and  the  gleads,  and  the  ravens, 
and  the  carrion-crows,  and  the  hooded-crows, 
and  the  rooks,  and  the  magpies,  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  rural  militia,  forgetting  their  own 
feuds,  sometimes  came  sallying  from  all  quar- 
ters, with  even  a  few  facetious  jackdaws  from 
the  old  castle,  to  show  fight  with  the  monarch 
of  the  air.  Amidst  all  that  multitude  of  wings 
winnowing  the  wind,  was  heard  the  sough  and 
whizz  of  those  might}^  vans,  as  the  Royal  Bird, 
himself  an  army,  performed  his  majestic  evo- 
lutions with  all  the  calm  confidence  of  a  master 
in  the  art  of  aerial  war,  now  shooting  up  half- 
a-thousand  feet  perpendicular,  and  now  sud- 
denly plumb-down  into  the  rear  of  the  croak- 
ing, cawing,  and  chattering  battalions,  cutting 
off  their  retreat  to  the  earth.  Then  the  rout 
became  general,  the  missing,  however,  far  out- 
numbering the  dead.  Keeping  possession  of 
the  field  of  battle,  hung  the  eagle  for  a  short 
while  motionless — till  with  one  fierce  yell  of 
triumph  he  seemed  to  seek  the  sun,  and  dis- 
appear like  a  speck  in  the  light,  surveying 
half  of  Scotland  at  a  glance,  and  a  thousand 
of  her  isles. 

Some  people  have  a  trick  of  describing  in- 
cidents as  having  happened  within  their  own 
observation,  when  in  fact  they  were  at  the  time 
lying  asleep  in  bed,  and  disturbing  the  whole 
house  with  the  snore  of  their  dormitory.  Such 
is  too  often  the  character  of  the  eye-witnesses 
of  the  present  age.  Now,  we  would  not  claim 
personal  acquaintance  with  an  incident  we  had 
not  seen — no,  not  for  a  hundred  guineas  per 
sheet ;  and,  therefore,  we  warn  the  reader  not 
to  believe  the  following  little  story  about  an 
eagle  and  child  (by  the  way,  that  is  the  Derby 
crest,  and  a  favourite  sign  of  inns  in  the  north 
of  England)  on  our  authority.  "I  tell  the  tale 
as  'twas  told  to  me,"  by  the  schoolmaster  of 
Naemanslaws,  in  the  shire  of  Ayr;  and  if  the 
incident  never  occurred,  then  must  he  have 
been  one  of  the  greatest  liars  that  ever  taught 
the  young  idea  how  to  shoot.  For  our  single 
selves,  we  are  by  nature  credulous.  Many 
extraordinary  things  happen  in  this  life,  and 
though  "  seeing  is  believing,"  so  likewise  "  be- 
lieving is  seeing,"  as  every  one  must  allow  who 
reads  these  our  Recreations. 

Almost  all  the  people  in  the  parish  were 
leading  in  their  meadow-hay  (there  were  not  in 
all  its  ten  miles  square  twenty  acres  of  rye- 
grass) on  the  same  day  of  midsummer,  so  dry- 
ing was  the  sunshine  and  the  wind, — and  huge 
heaped-up  wains,  that  almost  hid  from  view 
the  horses  that  drew  them  along  the  sward, 
,  beginning  to  get  green  with  second  growth, 
were  moving  in  all  directions  towards  the  snug 
farmvards.  Never  had  the  parish  seemed  be- 
fore so  populous.    Jocund  was  the  balmy  air 


with  laughter,  whistle,  and  song.  But  the  Tree- 
gnomons  threw  the  shadow  of  "  one  o'clock" 
on  the  green  dial-face  of  the  earth — the  horses 
were  unyoked,  and  took  instantly  to  grazing — 
groups  of  men,  women,  lads,  lasses,  and  chil- 
dren collected  under  grove,  and  bush,  and 
hedge-row — graces  were  pronounced,  some  of 
them  rather  too  tedious  in  presence  of  the  mant- 
ling milk-cans,  bullion-bars  of  butter,  and  crack- 
ling cakes  ;  and  the  great  Being  who  gave  them 
that  day  their  daily  bread,  looked  down  from 
his  Eternal  Throne,  well-pleased  with  the  piety 
of  his  thankful  creatures. 

The  great  Golden  Eagle,  the  pride  and  the 
pest  of  the  parish,  stooped  down,  and  away 
with  something  in  his  talons.  One  single  sud- 
den female  shriek — and  then  shouts  and  out- 
cries as  if  a  church  spire  had  tumbled  down 
on  a  congregation  at  a  sacrament.  "  Hannah 
Lamond's  bairn!  Hannah  Lamond's  bairn!" 
was  the  loud  fast-spreading  cry.  "  The  Eagle's 
ta'en  aff  Hannah  Lamond's  bairn  !"  and  many 
hundred  feet  were  in  another  instant  hurrying 
towards  the  mountain.  Two  miles  of  hill  and 
dale,  and  copse  and  shingle,  and  many  inter- 
secting brooks,  lay  between  ;  but  in  an  incred- 
ibly short  time  the  foot  of  the  mountain  was 
alive  with  people.  The  eyrie  was  well  known, 
and  both  old  birds  were  visible  on  the  rock- 
ledge.  But  who  shall  scale  that  dizzy  cliff, 
which  Mark  Steuart  the  sailor,  who  had  been 
at  the  storming  of  many  a  fort,  once  attempted 
in  vain?  All  kept  gazing,  or  weeping,  or 
wringing  of  hands,  rooted  to  the  ground,  or 
running  back  and  forwards,  like  so  many  ants 
essaying  their  new  wings,  in  discomfiture. 
"  What's  the  use— what's  the  use  o'  ony  puir 
human  means  ?  We  have  nae  power  but  in 
prayer !"  And  many  knelt  down — fathers  and 
mothers  thinking  of  their  own  babies — as  if 
they  would  force  the  deaf  heavens  to  hear. 

Hannah  Lamondhad  all  this  while  been  sit- 
ting on  a  stone,  with  a  face  perfectly  white, 
and  eyes  like  those  of  a  mad  person,  fixed  on 
the  eyrie.  Nobody  noticed  her;  for  strong  as 
all  sympathies  with  her  had  been  at  the  swoop 
of  the  Eagle,  they  were  now  swallowed  up  in 
the  agony  of  eyesight.  "Only  last  Sabbath 
was  my  sweet  wee  wean  baptized  in  the  name 
o'  the  Father,  and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost !"  and  on  uttering  these  words,  she  flew 
off  through  the  brakes  and  over  the  huge 
stones,  up — up — up— faster  than  ever  hunts- 
man ran  in  to  the  death— fearless  as  a  goat 
playing  among  the  precipices.  No  one  doubt- 
ed, no  one  could  doubt,  that  she  would  soon  be 
dashed  to  pieces.  But  have  not  people  who 
walk  in  their  sleep,  obedient  to  the  mysterious 
•Guidance  of  dreams,  clomb  the  walls  of  old 
ruins,  and  found  footing,  even  in  decrepitude, 
along  the  edge  of  unguarded  battlements,  and 
down  dilapidated  stair-cases  deep  as  draw 
wells  or  coal-pits,  and  returned  with  open, 
fixed,  and  unseeing  eyes,  unharmed  to  their 
beds  at  midnight]  It  is  all  the  work  of  the 
soul,  to  whom  the  body  is  a  slave;  and  shall 
not  the  agony  of  a  mother's  passion— who  sees 
her  baby,  whose  warm  mouth  had  just  left  her 
breast,  hurried  off  by  a  demon  to  a  hideous 
death— bear  her  limbs  aloft  wherever  there  is 

dust  to  dust,  till  she  reach  that  devouring  den, 


220 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


and  fiercer  and  more  furious  than  an}'  bird  of 
prey  that  ever  bathed  its  beak  in  blood,  throttle 
the  fiends  that  Avith  their  heavy  wing  would 
fain  flap  her  down  the  clifTs,  and  hold  up  her 
child  in  deliverance] 

No  stop — no  stay — she  knew  not  that  she 
drew  her  breath.  Beneath  her  feet  Providence 
fastened  every  loose  stone,  and  to  her  hands 
strengthened  every  root.  How  was  she  ever 
to  descend  ?  That  fear,  then,  but  once  crossed 
her  heart,  as  up — up — up — to  the  little  image 
made  of  her  own  flesh  and  blood.  "The  God 
who  holds  me  now  from  perishing — will  not 
the  same  God  save  me  when  my  child  is  at 
my  breast  1"  Down  came  the  fierce  rushing 
of  the  Eagles'  wings — each  savage  bird  dash- 
ing close  to  her  head,  so  that  she  saw  the  yel- 
low of  their  wrathful  e)'es.  All  at  once  they 
quailed,  and  were  cowed.  Yelling,  they  flew 
off  to  the  stump  of  an  ash  jutting  out  of  a  clifl", 
a  thousand  feet  above  the  cataract;  and  the 
Christian  mother,  falling  across  the  eyrie,  in 
the  midst  of  bones  and  blood,  clasped  her  child 
— dead — dead — no  doubt — but  unmangled  and 
untorn — and  swaddled  up  just  as  it  was  when 
she  laid  it  down  asleep  among  the  fresh  hay  in 
a  nook  of  the  harvest-field.  Oh  !  what  pang 
of  perfect  blessedness  transfixed  her  heart 
from  that  faint,  feeble  cry — "  It  lives  !  it  lives  ! 
it  lives !"  and  baring  her  bosom,  with  loud 
laughter,  and  eyes  dry  as  stones,  she  felt  the 
lips  (Tif  the  unc<inscious  innocent  once  more 
murmuring  at  the  fount  of  life  and  love.  "  O, 
thou  sreat  and  thou  dreadful  God!  whither 
hast  thou  brought  me — one  of  the  most  sinful 
of  thy  creatures  !  Oh  !  save  me  lest  I  perish, 
even  for  thy  own  name's  sake  !  O  Thou,  who 
died  to  save  sinners,  have  mercy  upon  me!" 
Clilfs,  charms,  blocks  of  stone,  and  the  skele- 
tons of  old  trees — far — far  down — and  dwindled 
into  specks  a  thousand  creatures  of  her  own 
kind,  stationary  or  running  to  and  fro  !  Was 
that  the  sound  of  the  waterfall,  or  the  faint 
roar  of  voices  !  Is  that  her  native  strath! — 
and  that  tuft  of  trees,  does  it  contain  the  hut  in 
which  stands  tlie  cradle  of  her  child  1  Never 
more  shall  it  be  rocked  by  her  foot!  Here 
must  she  die — and  when  her  breast  is  exhaust- 
ed— her  baby  too.  And  tho«e  horrid  beaks, 
and  eyes,  and  talons,  and  wings  will  return, 
and  her  child  will  be  devoured  at  last,  even 
within  the  dead  arras  that  can  protect  it  no 
more. 

Where,  all  this  while,  was  Mark  Steuart,  the 
sailor?  Halfway  up  the  clilfs.  But  his  eyes 
had  got  dim,  and  his  head  dizzy,  and  his  heart 
sick — and  he  who  had  so  often  reefed  the  top- 
gallant sail,  when  at  midnight  the  coming  of 
the  gale  was  heard  afar,  covered  his  face  with 
his  hands,  and  dared  look  no  longer  on  the 
swimming  heights.  "And  who  will  take  care 
of  my  poor  bedridden  mother  1"  thought  Han- 
nah, who,  through  exhaustion  of  so  many  pas- 
sions, could  no  more  retain  in  her  grasp  the 
hope  she  had  clutched  in  despair.  A  voice 
whispered  "  God."  She  looked  round  expect- 
ing to  see  a  spirit;  but  nothing  moved  except 
a  rotten  branch,  that,  under  its  own  weight, 
broke  off"  from  the  crumbling  rock.  Her  eye 
— by  some  secret  sympathy  M-ith  the  inanimate 
oDJeci  —watched  its  fall  •  and  it  seemed  to  stop, 


not  far  off,  on  a  small  platform.  Her  child 
was  bound  upon  her  shoulders — she  knew  not 
how  or  when — but  it  was  safe — and  scarcely 
daring  to  open  her  eyes,  she  slid  down  the 
shelving  rocks,  and  found  herself  on  a  small 
piece  of  firm  root-bound  soil,  with  the  tops  of 
bushes  appearing  below.  With  fingers  sud- 
denly strengthened  into  the  power  of  iron,  she 
swung  herself  down  by  brier,  and  broom,  and 
heather,  and  dwarf-birch.  There,  a  loosened 
stone  leapt  over  a  ledge,  and  no  sound  was 
heard,  so  profound  was  its  fall.  There,  the 
shingle  rattled  down  the  screes,  and  she  hesi- 
tated not  to  follow.  Her  feet  bounded  against 
the  huge  stone  that  stopped  them;  but  she  felt 
no  pain.  Her  body  was  callous  as  the  cliflf. 
Steep  as  the  wall  of  a  house  was  now  the  side 
of  the  precipice.  But  it  was  matted  with  ivy 
centuries  o!d — long  ago  dead,  and  without  a 
single  green  leaf — but  with  thousands  of  arm- 
thick  stems  petrified  into  the  rock,  and  cover- 
ing, it  as  with  a  trellice.  She  felt  her  baby  on 
her  neck,  and  with  hands  and  feet  clung  to  that 
fearful  ladder.  Turning  round  her  head,  and 
looking  down,  she  saw  the  whole  population 
of  the  parish — so  great  was  the  multitude — on 
their  knees.  She  heard  the  voice  of  psalms — 
a  hymn  breathing  the  spirit  of  one  united 
praj'er.  Sad  and  solemn  was  the  strain — but 
nothing  dirge-like — sounding  not  of  death,  but 
deliverance.  Often  had  she  sung  that  tune — 
perhaps  the  very  words — but  them  she  heard 
not — in  her  own  hut,  she  and  lier  mother — or 
in  the  kirk,  along  with  all  the  congregation. 
.\n  unseen  hand  seemed  fastening  her  fingers 
to  the  ribs  of  ivy,  and  in  sudden  inspiration, 
believing  that  her  life  was  to  be  saved,  she  be- 
came almost  as  fearless  as  if  she  had  been 
changed  into  a  winged  creature.  Again  her 
feet  touched  stones  and  earth — the  psalm  was 
hushed — but  a  tremulous  sobbing  voice  was 
close  beside  her,  and  a  she-goat  with  two  little 
kids  at  her  feet.  "  Wild  heights,"  thought  she, 
"  do  these  creatures  climb-^but  the  dam  will 
lead  down  her  kids  by  the  easiest  paths;  for 
in  the  brute  creatures  holy  is  the  power  of  a 
mother's  love!"  and  turning  round  her  head, 
she  kissed  her  sleeping  baby,  and  for  the  first 
time  she  wept. 

Overhead  frowned  the  front  of  the  piecipice, 
never  touched  before  by  human  hand  or  fooL 
No  one  had  ever  dreamt  of  scaling  it,  and  the 
Golden  Eagles  knew  that  well  in  their  instinct, 
as,  before  they  built  their  eyrie,  they  had  brushed 
it  with  their  wings.  But  the  downwards  part 
of  the  mountain-side,  though  scared,  and 
seamed,  and  chasmcd,  was  yet  accessible — 
an.d  more  than  one  person  in  the  parish  had 
reached  the  bottom  of  the  Glead's  Clifl'.  Many 
were  now  attempting  it — and  ere  the  cautious 
mother  had  followed  her  dumb  guides  a  hun- 
dred yards,  through  among  dangers  that,  al- 
though enough  to  terrifv  the  stoutest  heart, 
were  traversed  by  her  without  a  shudder,  the 
head  of  one  man  appeared,  and  then  the  head 
of  another,  and  she  knew  that  God  had  deli- 
vered her  and  her  child  into  the  care  of  their 
fellow-creatures.  Not  a  word  was  spoken^ 
she  hushed  her  friends  with  her  hands — and 
with  uplifted  eyes  pointed  to  the  guides  sent 
to  her  bv  Heaven.    Sxnall  green  plats,  where 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


221 


those  creatures  nibble  the  wild-flowers,  became 
now  more  frequent — trodden  lines,  almost  as 
plain  as  sheep-paths,  showed  that  the  dam 
had  not  led  her  young  into  danger ;  and  now 
the  brushwood  dwindled  away  into  straggling 
shrubs,  and  the  party  stood  on  a  little  eminence 
above  the  stream,  and  forming  part  of  the 
strath. 

There  had  been  trouble  and  agitation,  much 
sobbing  and  man)^  tears,  among  the  multitude, 
while  the  mother  was  scaling  the  clifT? — sub- 
lime was  the  shout  that  echoed  afar  the  mo- 
ment she  reached  the  eyrie — then  had  suc- 
ceeded a  silence  deep  as  death — in  a  little 
while  arose  that  hymning  prayer,  succeeded 
by  mute  supplication — the  wildness  of  thank- 
ful and  congratulatory  joy  had  next  its  sway — 
and  now  that  her  salvation  was  sure,  the  great 
crowd  rustled  like  a  wind-swept  wood.  And 
for  whose  sake  was  all  this  alternation  of  agony  ? 
A  poor  humble  creature,  unknown  to  many 
even  b)'  name — one  who  had  had  but  few 
friends,  nor  wished  for  more — contented  to 
work  all  day,  here — there — anywhere — that 
she  might  be  able  to  support  her  aged  mother 
and  her  child — and  who  on  Sabbath  took  her 
seat  in  an  obscure  pew,  set  apart  for  paupers, 
in  the  kirk. 

"  Fall  back,  and  give  her  fresh  air,"  said  the 
old  minister  of  the  parish;  and  the  ring  of 
close  faces  widened  round  her  lying  as  in 
death.  "  Gie  me  the  bonny  bit  bairn  into  my 
arms,"  cried  first  one  mother  and  then  another, 
and  it  was  tenderly  handed  round  the  circle  of 
kisses,  many  of  the  snooded  maidens  bathing 
its  face  in  tears.  "  There's  no  a  single  scratch 
about  the  puir  innocent,  for  the  Eagle,  you  see, 
maUn  hae  struck  its  talons  into  the  lang  claes 
and  the  shawl.  Blin',  blin'  maun  they  be  who 
see  not  the  finger  o'  God  in  this  thing!" 

Hannah  started  up  from  her  swoon — and, 
looking  wildly  round  cried,  "  Oh  !  the  Bird — 
•he  Bird!— the  Eagle— the  Eagle  !— The  Eagle 
has  carried  off  my  bonny  wee  Walter — is  there 
nane  to  pursue  V  A  neighbour  put  her  baby 
into  her  breast;  and  shutting  her  eyes,  and 
smiting  her  forehead,  the  sorely  bewildered 
creature  said  in  a  low  voice,  "  Am  I  wauken — 
oh  !  tell  me  if  I'm  wauken — or  if  a'  this  be  but 
the  wark  o'  a  fever." 

Hannah  Lamond  was  not  yet  twenty  years 
old,  and  although  she  was  a  mother — and  you 
may  guess  what  a  mother — yet — frown  not, 
fair  and  gentle  reader — frown  not,  pure  and 
stainless  as  thou  art — to  her  belonged  not  the 
sacred  name  of  wife — and  that  baby  was  the 
child  of  sin  and  shame — yes — "  the  child  of 
misery,  baptized  in  tears  !"  .  She  had  loved — 
trusted — been  betrayed — and  deserted.  In  sor- 
row and  solitude — uncomforted  and  despised — 
she  bore  her  burden.  Dismal  had  been  the 
hour  of  travail — and  she  feared  her  mother's 
heart  would  have  broken,  even  when  her  own 
was  cleft  in  twain.  But  how  healing  is  for- 
giveness— alike  to  the  wounds  of  the  forgiving 
and  the  forgiven  !  And  then  Hannah  knew 
that,  although  guilty  before  God,  her  guilt  was 
not  such  as  her  fellow-creatures  deemed  it — 
for  there  were  dreadful  secrets  which  should 
never  pass  her  lips  against  the  father  of  her 
child.     So  she  bowed  down  her  young  head, 


and  soiled  it  with  the  ashes  of  repentance — 
walking  with  her  eyes  on  the  ground  as  she 
again  entered  the  kirk — yet  not  fearing  to  lift 
them  up  to  heaven  during  the  prayer.  Her 
sadness  inspired  a  general  pity — she  was  ex- 
cluded from  no  house  she  had  heart  to  visit — 
no  coarse  comment,  no  ribald  jest  accom- 
panied the  notice  people  took  of  her  baby — no 
licentious  rustic  presumed  on  her  frailty  ;  for 
the  pale,  melancholy  face  of  the  nursing 
mother,  weeping  as  she  sung  the  lullaby, 
forbade  all  such  approach — and  an  universal 
sentiment  of  indignation  drove  from  the  parish 
the  heartless  and  unprincipled  seducer — if  all 
had  been  known,  too  weak  word  for  his  crime 
— who  left  thus  to  pine  in  sorrow,  and  in 
shame  far  worse  than  sorrow,  one  who  till  her 
unhappy  fall  had  been  held  up  by  every 
mother  as  an  example  to  her  daughters. 

Never  had  she  striven  to  cease  to  love  her 
betrayer — but  she  had  striven — and  an  ap- 
peased conscience  had  enabled  her  to  do  so — 
to  think  not  of  him  now  that  he  had  deserted 
her  for  ever.  Sometimes  his  image,  as  well 
in  love  as  in  wrath,  passed  before  the  eye  of 
her  heart — but  she  closed  it  in  tears  of  blood, 
and  the  phantom  disappeared.  Thus  all  the 
love  towards  him  that  slept — but  was  not  dead 
— arose  in  j-earnings  of  still  more  exceeding 
love  towards  her  child.  Round  its  head  was 
gathered  all  hope  of  comfort — of  peace — of 
reward  of  her  repentance.  One  of  its  smiles 
was  enough  to  brighten  up  the  darkness  of  a 
whole  day.  In  her  breast — on  her  knee — in  its 
cradle,  she  regarded  it  with  a  perpetual  prayer. 
And  this  feeling  it  was,  with  all  the  overwhelm- 
ing tenderness  of  affection,  all  the  invigorat- 
ing power  of  passion,  that,  under  the  hand  of 
God,  bore  her  up  and  down  that  fearful  moun- 
tain's brow,  and  after  the  hour  of  rescue  and 
deliverance,  stretched  her  on  the  greensward 
like  a  corpse. 

The  rumour  of  the  miracle  circled  the 
mountain's  base,  and  a  strange  story  without 
names  had  been  told  to  the  Wood-ranger  of  the 
Cairn-Forest,  by  a  wayfaring  man.  Anxious 
to  know  what  truth  there  was  in  it,  he  crossed 
the  hill,  and  making  his  way  through  the  sul- 
len crowd,  went  up  to  the  eminence,  and  be- 
held her  whom  he  had  so  wickedly  ruined, 
and  so  basely  deserted.  Hisses,  and  groans, 
and  hootings,  and  fierce  eyes,  and  clenched 
hands  assailed  and  threatened  him  on  every 
side. 

His  heart  died  within  him,  not  in  fear,  but 
in  remorse.  What  a  worm  he  felt  himself  to 
be  !  And  fain  would  he  have  become  a  worm 
that,  to  escape  all  that  united  human  scorn,  he 
might  have  wriggled  away  in  slime  into  some 
hole  of  the  earth.  But  the  meek  eye  of  Han- 
nah met  his  in  forgiveness — an  un-upbraiding 
tear — a  faint  smile  of  love.  All  his  better  na- 
ture rose  within  him,  all  his  worse  nature  M^as 
quelled.  "Yes,  good  people,  you  do  right  to 
cover  me  with  your  scorn.  But  what  is  )'our 
scorn  to  the  wrath  of  God  I  The  Evil  One 
has  often  been  with  me  in  the  woods;  the 
same  voice  that  once  whispered  me  to  murder 
her — but  here  I  am — not  to  offer  retribution- 
for  that  may  not— will  not— must  not  be— guilt 
must  not  mate  with  innocence.  But  here  I 
T  2 


222 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


proclaim  that  innocence.    I  deserve  death,  and  I  twenty-four  hours'  purchase.    Never  was  there 
I  am  willing:  here,  on  this  spot,  to  deliver  my-  \  a  single  hound  in  all  Lord  Darlington's  packs, 


self  into  the  hands  of  justice.     Allan  Calder 
— I  call  on  you  to  seize  your  prisoner." 

The  moral  sense  of  the  people,  when  in- 
structed by  knowledge  and  enlightened  by  re- 
ligion, what  else  is  it  but  the  voice  of  God! 
Their  anger  subsided  into  a  stem  satisfaction 
— and  that  soon  softened,  in  sight  of  her  who, 


alone  aggrieved,  alone  felt  nothing  but  forgive- 
ness, into  a  confused  compassion  for  the  man 
who,  bold  and  bad  as  he  had  been,  had  under- 
gone many  solitary  torments,  and  nearly  fallen 
in  his  uncompanioned  misery  into  the  power 
of  the  Prince  of  Darkness.  The  old  clergy- 
man, whom  all  reverenced,  put  the  contrite 
man's  hand  in  hers,  whom  he  swore  to  love 
and  cherish  all  his  days.  And,  ere  summer 
was  over,  Hannah  was  the  mistress  of  a  fami- 
ly, in  a  house  not  much  inferior  to  a  Manse. 
Her  mother,  now  that  not  only  her  daughter's 
reputation  was  freed  from  stain,  but  her  inno- 
cence also  proved,  renewed  her  youth.  And 
although  the  worthy  schoolmaster,  who  told 
us  the  tale  so  much  belter  than  we  have  been 
able  to  repeat  it,  confessed  that  the  wood- 
ranger  never  became  aliogelher  a  saint — nor 
acquired  the  edifying  habit  of  pulling  down 
the  corners  of  his  moulh,  and  turning  up  the 
whites  of  his  eyes — yet  he  assured  us,  that  he 
never  afterwards  heard  any  thing  very  seri- 
ously to  his  prejudice — that  he  became  in  due 
time  an  elder  of  the  kirk — gave  his  children  a 
religious  education — erring  only  in  making 
rather  too  much  of  a  pel  of  his  eldest  born, 
whom,  even  when  grown  up  to  manhood,  he 
never  called  by  any  other  name  than  the 
Eaglet. 


THIRD  CANTICLE. 

Tnr.  Raven  !  In  a  solitary  glen  sits  down  on 
a  stone  the  roaming  pedestrian,  beneath  the 
hush  and  gloom  of  a  thundery  sky  that  has 
not  yet  begun  to  growl,  and  hears  no  sounds 
but  that  of  an  occasional  big  rain-drop  plash- 
ing on  the  bare  bent;  the  crag  high  overhead 
sometimes  utters  a  sullen  groan — the  pilgrim, 
starting,  listens,  and  the  noise  is  repeated,  but 
instead  of  a  groan,  a  croak — croak — croak! 
manifestly  from  a  thing  with  life.  A  pause 
of  silence !  and  hollower  and  hoarser  the 
croak  is  heard  from  the  opposite  side  of  the 
glen.  Eyeing  the  black  sultry  heaven,  he 
feels  the  warm  plash  on  his  face,  but  sees  no 
bird  on  the  wing.  By  and  by,  something  black 
lifts  itself  slowly  and  heavily  up  from  a  preci- 
pice, in  deep  shadow  ;  and  before  it  has  cleared 
the  rock-range,  and  entered  the  upper  region 
of  air,  he  knows  it  to  be  a  Raven.  The  crea- 
ture seems  wroth  to  be  disturbed  in  his  soli- 
tude, and  in  his  strong  straight-forward  flight 
aims  at  the  head  of  another  glen ;  but  he 
wheels  round  at  the  iron  barrier,  and,  alight- 
ing aniong  the  heather,  folds  his  huge  massy 
wings,  and  leaps  about  as  if  in  anger,  with 
the  same  savage  croak — croak — croak  !  No 
other  bird  so  like  a  demon — and  should  you 
chance  to  break  a  leg  in  the  desert,  and  be 
unable  to  crawl  to  a  hut,  your  life  is  not  worth 


since  his  lordship  became  a  mighty  hunter, 
with  nostrils  so  fine  as  those  of  that  feathered 
fiend,  covered  though  they  be  with  strong  hairs 
or  bristles,  that  grimly  adorn  a  bill  of  formi- 
dable dimensions,  and  apt  for  digging  out  eye- 
socket  and  splitting  skull-suture  of  dying  man 
or  beast.  That  bill  cannot  tear  in  pieces  like 
the  eagle's  beak,  nor  are  its  talons  so  powerful 
to  smile  as  to  compress — but  a  better  bill  for 
cut-and-thrusl — push,  carte,  and  tierce — the 
dig  dismal  and  the  plunge  profound — belongs 
to  no  other  bird.  It  inflicts  great  gashes  ;  nor 
needs  the  wound  to  be  repeated  on  the  same 
spot.  Feeder  foul  and  obscene  !  to  thy  nostril 
upturned  "  into  the  murky  air,  sagacious  of 
thy  quarry  from  afar,"  sweeter  is  the  scent  of 
carrion,  than  to  the  panting  lover's  sense  and 
soul  the  fragrance  of  his  own  virgin's  breath 
and  bosom,  when,  lying  in  her  innocence  in 
his  arms,  her  dishevelled  tresses  seem  laden 
with  something  more  ethereally  pure  than 
"  Sabean  odours  from  the  spicy  shores  of 
Araby  the  Blest." 

The  Raven  dislikes  all  animal  food  that  has 
not   a  deathy  smack.     It  cannot   be  thought 
that  he  has  any  reverence  or  aAve  of  the  mys- 
tery of  life.     Neither  is  he  a  coward;  at  least, 
not  su6h  a  coward  as  to  fear  the  dying  kick 
of  a  lamb  or  sheep.     Yet  so  long  as  his  vic- 
tim can  stand,  or  sit,  or  lie  in  a  strong  struggle, 
the  raven   keeps   aloof — hopping  in  a  circle 
that  narrows  and  narrows  as  the  sick  animal's 
nostrils  keep  dilating  in  convulsions,  and  its 
eyes  grow  dimmer  and  more  dim.     When  the 
prey  is  in  the  last  agonies,  croaking,  he  leaps 
upon  the  breathing  carcass,  and  whets  his  bill 
upon  his  own   blue-ringed  legs,  steadied   by 
claws  in  the  fleece,  yet  not  so  fiercely  inserted 
as  lo  get  entangled  and  fas-t.     With  his  large 
level-crowned  head  bobbing  up  and  down,  and 
turned  a  little  first  to  one  side  and  then  to  an- 
other, all  the  while  a  self-congratulatory  leer 
in  his  eye,  he  unfolds  his  wings,  and  then  folds 
them  again,  twenty  or  thirty  times,  as  if  dubi- 
ous how  lo  begin  lo  gratify  his  lust  of  blood; 
and  frequently,  when  just  on  ihe  brink  of  con- 
summation, jumps  off  side,  back,  or  throat, 
and    goes  dallying   about,  round  and   round, 
and  off  to  a  small  safe  distance,  scenting,  al- 
most snorting,  the  smell  of  the  blood  running 
cold,  colder,  and  more  cold.     At  last  the  poor 
wretch  is  still ;  and  then,  without  waiting  till 
it  is  stiff",  he  goes  to  work  earnestly  and  pas- 
sionately, and  taught  by  horrid  instinct  how  to 
reach  the  entrails,  revels  in  obscene  gluttony, 
and  preserves,  it  may  be,  eye,  lip,  palate,  and 
brain,  for  the  last  course  of  his  meal,  gorged 
to  the  throat,  incapacitated  to  return  thanks, 
and  with  difficulty  able   either  to  croak    or 
to  fly. 

The  Raven,  it  is  thought,  is  in  the  habit  of 
living  upwards  of  a  hundred  )'ears,  perhaps  a 
couple  of  centuries.  Children  grow  into  girls, 
girls  into  maidens,  maidens  into  wives,  wives 
into  widows,  widows  into  old  decrepit  crones, 
and  crones  into  dust;  and  the  Raven  who 
wons  at  the  head  of  the  glen,  is  aware  of  all 
the  births,  baptisms,  marriages,  death-beds, 
and  funerals.    Certain  it  is — at  least  so  men 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


223 


say — that  he  is  aware  of  the  death-beds  and 
the  funerals.     Often  does  he  flap  his  wings 
against  door  and  window  of  hut,  when  the 
wretch  within  is  in  extremity,  or,  sitting  on 
the  heather-roof,  croaks  horror  into  the  dying 
dream.     As  the  funeral  winds  its  way  towards 
the  mountain  cemetery  he  hovers  aloft  in  the 
air — or,  swooping  down   nearer  to   the   bier, 
precedes    the    corpse    like    a    sable    sauley. 
While  the  party  of  friends  are  carousing  in 
the  house  of  death,  he,  too,  scorning  funeral- 
baked  meats,  croaks  hoarse  hymns  and  dismal 
dirges  as  he  is  devouring  the  pet-lamb  of  the 
little  grandchild  of  the  deceased.     The  shep- 
herds maintain  that  the  Raven  is  sometimes 
heard   to   laugh.      Why  not,  as  well  as   the 
hyena?     Then  it  is  that  he  is  most  diabolical, 
for  he  knows  that  his  laughter  is  prophetic  of 
human  death.     True  it  is,  and  it  would  be  in- 
justice to  conceal  the  fact,  much  more  to  deny 
it,  that  Ravens  of  old  fed  Elijah;  but  that  was  the 
punishment  of  some  old  sin  committed  by  Two 
who  before  the  Flood  bore  the  human  shape, and 
who,  soon  as  the  ark  rested  on  Mount  Ararat, 
flew  off  to  the  desolation  of  swamped  forests 
and    the   disfigured   solitude  of  the  drowned 
glens.     Dying  Ravens   hide  themselves  from 
daylight  in  burial-places  among  the  rocks,  and 
are  seen  hobbling  into  their  tombs,  as  if  driven 
thither  by  a  flock  of  fears,  and  crouching  un- 
der a  remorse  that  disturbs  instinct,  even  as 
if  it  were   conscience.      So   sings   and  says 
the  Celtic  superstition — muttered  to  us  in  a 
dream — adding  that  there  are  Raven  ghosts, 
great  black  bundles  of  feathers,  for  ever  in  the 
forest,  night-hunting  in  famine  for  prey,  emit- 
ting- a  last  feeble  croak  at  the  blush  of  dawn, 
and  then  all  at  once  invisible. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  that  foolish 
Quaker,  who  some  twent}''  years  ago  perished 
at  the  foot  of  a  crag  near  Red  Tarn,  "far  in 
the  bosom  of  Hclvyllyn,"  was  devoured  by 
ravens.  We  call  him  foolish,  because  no  ad- 
herent of  that  sect  was  ever  qualified  to  find 
his  way  among  mountains  when  the  day  Avas 
shortish,  and  the  snow,  if  not  very  deep,  yet 
wreathed  and  pit-failed.  In  such  season  and 
weather,  no  place  so  fit  for  a  Quaker  as  the 
fireside.  Not  to  insist,  however,  on  that  point, 
with  what  glee  the  few  hungry  and  thirsty  old 
Ravens  belonging  to  the  Red  Tarn  Club  must 
have  flocked  to  the  Ordinar}^!  Without  ask- 
ing each  other  to  which  part  this,  that,  or  the 
other  croaker  chose  to  be  helped,  the  maxim 
which  regulated  their  behaviour  at  table  was 
doubtless,  "  First  come,  first  served."  Forth- 
with each  bill  was  busy,  and  the  scene  became 
animated  in  the  extreme.  There  must  have 
been  great  difficulty  to  the  most  accomplished 
of  the  carrion  in  stripping  the  Quaker  of  his 
drab.  The  broad-brim  had  probably  escaped 
with  the  first  intention,  and  after  going  before 
the  wind  half  across  the  unfrozen  Tarn,  cap- 
sized, filled,  and  sunk.  Picture  to  yourself  so 
many  devils,  all  in  glossy  black  feather  coats 
and  dark  breeches,  with  waistcoats  inclining 
to  blue,  pully-hawlying  away  at  the  unresisting 
figure  of  the  follower  of  Fox,  and  getting  first 
vexed  and  then  irritated  with  the  pieces  of 
choking  soft  armour  in  which,  five  or  six  ply 
thick,  his  inviting  carcass  was  so  provokingly 


insheathed!     First  a  drab  dufile  cloak — then  a 
drab  wraprascal — then  a  drab  broad-cloth  coat, 
made  in  the  oldest  fashion — then  a  drab  waist- 
coat of  the  same — then  a  drab  under-waistcoat 
of  thinner  moiild — then  a  linen-shirt,  some- 
what drabbish — then  a  flannel-shirt,  entirely 
so,  and  most  odorous  to  the  nostrils  of  the 
members  of  the   Red   Tarn   Club.     All   this 
must  have  taken  a  couple  of  days  at  the  least; 
so,  supposing  the  majority  of  members  assem- 
bled about  eight  a.  m.  on  the  Sabbath  morning, 
it  must  have  been  well  on  to  twelve  o'clock  on 
Monday  night  before  the  club  could  have  com- 
fortably sat  down  to  supper.    During  these  two 
denudingdays,wecanwellbelievethatthePresi- 
dent  must  have  been  hard  put  to  it  to  keep  the 
secretary,  treasurer,  chaplain,  and  other  office- 
bearers, ordinary  and  extraordinary  members, 
from  giving  a  sly  dig  at  Obadiah's  face,  so 
tempting  in  the  sallow  hue  and  rank  smell  of 
first  corruption.     Dead  bodies  keep  well  in 
frost;  but  the  subject  had  in  this  case  proba- 
bly fallen  from  a  great  height,  had  his  bones 
broken  to  smash,  his  flesh  bruised  and  mangled. 
The  President,  therefore,  we  repeat  it,  even 
though  a  raven  of  great  age  and  authority, 
must  have  had  inconceivable  difficulty  in  con- 
trolling the  Club.     The  croak  of  "  Order  ! — 
order!  —  Chair!  —  chair!" — must  have    been 
frequent;  and  had  the  office  not  been  hereditary, 
the  old  gentleman  would  no  doubt  have  thrown 
it  up,  and  declared  the  chair  vacant.     All  ob 
stacles  and  obstructions  having  been  by  inde 
fatigable  activity  removed,  no  attempt,  we  may 
well  believe,  was  made  by  the  seneschal  to 
place  the  guests  according  to  their  rank,  above 
or  below  the  salt,  and  the  party  sat  promiscuous- 
ly down  to  a  late  supper.  Not  a  word  was  uttered 
during  the  first  half  hour,  till  a  queer-looking 
mortal,  who  had  spent  several  years  of  his  prime, 
of  birdhood  at  old  Calgarth,  and  picked  up  a 
tolerable  command  of  the  Westmoreland  dialect 
by  means  of  the  Hamiltonian  system,  exclaim- 
ed, "  I'se  weel  nee'brussen — there  he's  Mister 
Wudsworth — Ho,  ho,  ho  !"     It  was  indeed  the 
bard,  benighted  in  the  Excursion  from  Patter- 
dale   to  Jobson's  Cherry-Tree ;   and  the  Red 
Tarn  Club,  afraid  of  having  their  orgies  put 
into  blank  verse,  sailed  away  in  floating  frag- 
ments beneath  the  moon  and  stars. 

But  over  the  doom  of  one  true  Lover  of  Na- 
ture let  us  shed  a  flood  of  rueful  tears ;  for  at 
what  tale  shall  mortal  man  weep,  if  not  at  the 
tale  of  youthful  genius  and  virtue  shrouded 
suddenly  in  a  winding-sheet  wreathed  of  snow 
by  the  pitiless  tempest!  Elate  in  the  joy  of 
solitude,  he  hurried  like  a  fast  travelling  shadow 
into  the  silence  of  the  frozen  mountains,  all 
beautifully  encrusted  with  pearls,  and  jewels, 
and  diamonds,  beneath  the  resplendent  night- 
heavens.  The  din  of  populous  cities  had  long 
stunned  his  brain,  and  his  soul  had  sickened 
in  the  presence  of  the  money-hunting  eyes  of 
selfish  men,  all  madly  pursuing  their  multifa- 
rious machinations  in  the  great  mart  of  com- 
merce. The  very  sheeted  masts  of  ships, 
bearing  the  flags  of  foreign  countries,  in  all 
their  pomp  and  beauty  sailing  homeward  or 
outward-bound,  had  become  hateful  to  his 
spirit — for  what  were  they  but  the  floating  en- 
ginery of  Mammon  ?    Trf'h,  integrity  honour. 


224 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


•were  all  recklessly  sacrificed  to  gain  by  the 
friends  he  loved  and  had  respected  most — sa- 
crificed without  shame  and  without  remorse 
— repentance  being  with  them  a  repentance 
only  over  ill-laid  schemes  of  villany — plans 
for  the  ruination  of  widows  and  orphans, 
blasted  in  the  bud  of  their  iniquity.  The  bro- 
ther of  his  bosom  made  him  a  bankrupt — and 
for  a  year  the  jointure  of  his  widAw-mother 
was  unpaid.  But  she  died  before  the  second 
Christmas — and  he  was  left  alone  in  the  world. 
Poor  indeed  he  was,  but  not  a  beggar.  A  lega- 
cy came  to  him  from  a  distant  relation — almost 
the  only  one  of  his  name — who  died  abroad. 
Small  as  it  was,  it  was  enough  to  live  on — and 
his  enthusiastic  spirit  gathering  joy  from  dis- 
tress, vowed  to  dedicate  itself  in  some  profound 
solitude  to  the  love  of  Nature,  and  the  study 
of  her  Great  Laws.  He  bade  an  eternal  fare- 
well to  cities  at  the  dead  of  midnight,  beside 
his  mother's  grave,  scarcely  distinguishable 
among  the  thousand  flat  stones,  sunk,  or  sink- 
ing into  the  wide  churchyard,  along  which  a 
great  thoroughfare  of  life  roared  like  the  sea. 
And  now,  for  the  first  time,  his  sorrow  flung 
from  him  like  a  useless  garment,  he  found 
himself  alone  among  the  Cumbrian  mountains, 
and  impelled  in  strong  idolatry  almost  to  kneel 
down  and  worship  the  divine  beauty  of  the 
moon,  and  "  stars  that  are  the  poetry  of  hea- 
ven." 

Not  uninstructed  was  the  wanderer  in  the 
lore  that  links  the  human  heart  to  the  gracious 
form  and  aspects  of  the  Mighty  Mother.  In 
early  youth  he  had  been  intended  for  the 
Church,  and  subsequent  years  of  ungrateful 
and  ungenial  toils  liad  not  extinguished  the 
fine  scholarship  that  native  aptitude  for  learn- 
ing had  acquired  in  the  humble  school  of  the 
village  in  which  he  was  born.  He  had  been 
ripe  for  College  when  the  sudden  death  of  his 
father,  who  had  long  been  at  the  head  of  a  great 
mercantile  concern,  imposed  it  upon  him,  as  a 
sacred  duty  owed  to  his  mother  and  sisters,  to 
embark  in  trade.  Not  otherwise  could  he  hope 
ever  to  retrieve  their  fortunes — and  for  ten 
years  for  their  sake  he  was  a  slave,  till  ruin 
set  him  free.  Now  he  was  master  of  his  own 
destiny — and  sought  some  humble  hut  in  that 
magnificent  scenery,  where  he  might  pass  a 
blameless  life,  and  among  earth's  purest  joys 
prepare  his  soul  for  heaven.  Many  such  hum- 
ble huts  had  he  seen  during  that  one  bold, 
bright,  beautiful  spring-winter  day.  Each 
wreath  of  smoke  from  the  breathing  chimneys, 
while  the  huts  themselves  seemed  hardly 
awakened  from  sleep  in  the  morning-calm,  led 
his  imagination  up  into  the  profound  peace  of 
the  sky.  In  any  one  of  those  dwellings,  peep- 
ing from  sheltered  dells,  or  perched  on  wind- 
swept eminences,  could  he  have  taken  up  his 
abode,  and  sat  down  contented  at  the  board  of 
their  simple  inmates.  But  in  the  very  delirium 
of  a  new  bliss,  the  day  faded  before  him — twi- 
light looked  lovelier  than  dream-land  in  the 
reflected  glimmer  of  the  snow — and  thus  had 
iiidnight  found  him,  in  a  place  so  utterly  lone- 
some in  its  remoteness  from  aW  habitations, 
that  even  in  summer  no  stranger  sought  it 
without  the  guidance  of  some  shepherd  fami- 
liar with  the   many  bewildering  passes  that 


stretched  away  in  all  directions  through  among 
the  mountains  to  distant  vales.  No  more  fear 
or  thought  had  he  of  being  lost  in  the  wilder- 
ness, than  the  ring-dove  that  flies  from  forest 
to  forest  in  the  winter  season,  and,  without  the 
aid  even  of  vision,  trusts  to  the  instinctive 
wafting  of  her  wings  through  the  paths  of  ether. 
As  he  continued  gazing  on  the  heavens,  the 
moon  all  at  once  lost  something  of  her  bright- 
ness— the  stars  seemed  fewer  in  number — and 
the  lustre  of  the  rest  as  by  mist  obscured.  The 
blue  ethereal  frame  grew  discoloured  with 
streaks  of  red  and  yellow — and  a  sort  of  dim 
darkness  deepened  and  deepened  on  the  air, 
while  the  mountains  appeared  higher,  and  at 
the  same  time  further  off",  as  if  he  had  been 
transported  in  a  dream  to  another  region  of 
the  earth.  A  sound  was  heard,  made  up  of  far- 
mustering  winds,  echoes  from  caves,  swinging 
of  trees,  and  the  murmur  as  of  a  great  lake  or 
sea  beginning  to  break  on  the  shore.  A  few 
flakes  of  snow  touched  his  face,  and  the  air 
grew  cold.  A  clear  tarn  had  a  few  minutes  be- 
fore glittered  with  moonbeams,  but  now  it  had 
disappeared.  Sleet  came  thicker  and  faster, 
and  ere  long  it  was  a  storm  of  snow.  "  0  God  ! 
my  last  hour  is  come !"  and  scarcely  did  he 
hear  his  own  voice  in  the  roaring  tempest. 

Men  have  died  in  dungeons — and  their  skele- 
tons been  found  long  years  afterwards  lying 
on  the  stone  floor,  in  postures  that  told  through 
what  hideous  agonies  they  had  passed  into  the 
world  of  spirits.  But  no  eye  saw,  nor  ear  heard, 
and  the  prison-visitor  gathers  up,  as  he  shudders, 
but  a  dim  conviction  of  some  long  horror  from 
the  bones.  One  day  in  spring,  long  after  the 
snows  were  melted — except  here  and  there  a 
patch  like  a  flock  of  sheep  on  some  sunless 
exposure — a  huge  Raven  rose  heavily,  as  if 
gorged  with  prey,  before  the  feet  of  a  shepherd, 
who,  going  forward  to  the  spot  where  the  bird 
had  been  feeding,  beheld  a  rotting  corpse  !  A 
dog,  itself  almost  a  skeleton,  was  lying  near, 
and  began  to  whine  at  his  approach.  On  its 
collar  was  the  name  of  its  master — a  name 
unknown  in  that  part  of  the  country — and 
weeks  elapsed  before  any  person  could  be 
heard  of  that  could  tell  the  history  of  the  suf- 
ferer. A  stranger  came  and  went — taking  the 
faithful  creature  with  him  that  had  so  long 
watched  by  the  dead — but  long  before  his  ar- 
rival the  remains  had  been  interred  ;  and  you 
may  see  the  grave,  a  little  Avay  on  from  the 
south  gate,  on  your  right  hand  as  you  enter, 
not  many  yards  from  the  Great  Yew-Tree  in 

the  churchyard  of ,  not  far  from  the  foot 

of  Ullswater. 

Gentle  reader!  we  have  given  you  two  ver- 
sions of  the  same  story — and  pray,  which  do 
you  like  the  best  ]  The  first  is  the  most  funny, 
the  second  the  most  afl'ecting.  We  have  ob- 
served that  the  critics  are  not  decided  on  the 
question  of  our  merits  as  a  writer;  some  main- 
taining that  we  are  strongest  in  humour — 
others,  that  our  power  is  in  pathos.  The  ju- 
dicious declare  that  our  forte  lies  in  both — in 
the  two  united,  or  alternating  with  each  other. 
"But  is  it  not  quite  shocking,"  exclaims  some 
scribbler  who  has  been  knouted  in  Ebony,  "to 
hear  so  very  serious  an  afl^air  as  the  death  of  a 
Quaker  in  the  snow  among  mountains,  treated 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


225 


with  such  heartless  levity?  The  man  who 
wrote  that  description,  sir,  of  the  Ordinary  of 
the  Red  Tarn  Club,  would  not  scruple  to  com- 
mit murder!"  Why,  if  killing  a  scribbler  be 
murder,  the  writer  of  that — this — article  con- 
fesses that  he  has  more  than  once  committed 
that  capital  crime.  But  no  intelligent  jury, 
taking  into  consideration  the  law  as  well  as 
the  fact — and  it  is  often  their  duty  to  do  so,  let 
high  authorities  say  what  they  will — would  for 
a  moment  hesitate,  in  any  of  the  cases  alluded 
to,  to  bring  in  a  verdict  of  "Justifiable  homi- 
cide." The  gentleman  or  lady  who  has  honour- 
ed us  so  far  with  perusal,  knows  enough  of 
human  life,  and  of  their  own  hearts,  to  know 
also  that  there  is  no  other  subject  which  men 
of  genius — and  who  ever  denied  that  we  are 
men  of  genius  1 — have  been  accustomed  to 
view  in  so  many  ludicrous  lights  as  this  same 
subject  of  death  ;  and  the  reason  is  at  once  ob- 
vious— yet  rcrlurrlie — videlicet.  Death  is,  in  it- 
self and  all  that  belongs  to  it,  such  a  sad,  cold, 
wild,  dreary,  dismal,  distracting,  and  dreadful 
thing,  that  at  times  men  talking  about  it  can- 
not choose  but  laugh! 

Too-hool»—  too-hoo  —  too-whit-too-hoo ! — we 
have  got  among  the  Owls.  Venerable  per- 
sonages, in  truth,  they  are — perfect  Solomons! 
The  spectator,  as  in  most  cases  of  very  solemn 
characters,  feels  himsi  If  at  first  strongly  dis- 
posed to  commit  the  gross  indecorum  of  burst- 
ing out  a-laughing  in  their  face.  One  does 
not  see  the  absolute  necessity  either  of  man  or 
bird  looking  at  all  times  so  unaccountably 
wise.  Why  will  an  Owl  persist  in  his  stare? 
Why  will  a  Bishop  never  lay  aside  his  wigl 

People  ignorant  of  Ornithology  will  stare 
like  the  Bird  of  Wisdom  himself  on  being  told 
that  an  Owl  is  an  Eagle.  Yet,  bating  a  little 
inaccuracy,  it  is  so.  Eagles,  kites,  hawks,  and 
owls,  all  belong  to  the  genus  Falco.  We  hear 
a  great  deal  too  much  in  poetry  of  the  moping 
Owl,  the  melancholy  Owl,  the  boding  Owl, 
whereas  he  neither  mopes  nor  bodes,  and  is 
no  more  melancholy  tiian  becomes  a  gentle- 
man. We  also  hear  of  the  Owl  being  addicted 
to  spirituous  liquors;  and  hence  the  expres- 
sion, as  drunk  as  an  Owl.  All  this  is  mere 
Whig  personality,  the  Owl  being  a  Tory  of  the 
old  school,  and  a  friend  of  the  ancient  estab- 
lishments of  church  and  state.  Nay,  the  same 
political  party,  although  certainly  the  most 
short-sighted  of  God's  creatures,  taunt  the  Owl 
with  being  blind.  As  blind  as  an  Owl  is  a 
libel  in  frequent  use  out  of  ornithological  so- 
ciety. Shut  up  Lord  Jeffrey  himself  in  a  hay- 
barn  with  a  well-built  mow,  and  ask  him  in 
the  darkness  to  catch  you  a  few  mice,  and  he 
will  tell  you  whether  or  not  the  Owl  be  blind. 
This  would  be  just  as  fair  as  to  expect  the 
Owl  to  see,  like  Lonl  Jeffrey,  through  a  case 
in  the  Parliament  House  during  daylight.  Nay, 
we  once  heard  a  writer  in  Taylor  and  Hessey 
call  the  Owl  stupid,  he  himself  having  longer 
ears  than  any  species  of  Owl  extant.  What  is 
the  positive  character  of  the  Owl  may  perhaps 
appear  by  and  by ;  but  we  have  seen  that,  de- 
scribing his  character  by  negations,  we  may 
say  that,  he  resembles  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
much  more  than  Joseph  Hume  or  Alderman 
Wood.  He  is  not  moping — not  boding — not 
29 


melancholy — not  a  drunkard — not  blind — not 
stupid  ;  as  much  as  it  would  be  prudent  to  say 
of  any  man,  whether  editor  or  contributor,  in 
her  Majesty's  dominions. 

We  really  have  no  patience  with  people  who 
persist  in  all  manner  of  misconceptions  re- 
garding the  character  of  birds.  Birds  often 
appear  to  such  persons,  judging  from,  of,  and 
by  themselves,  to  be  in  mind  and  manners  the 
reverse  of  their  real  character.  They  judge 
the  inner  bird  by  outward  circumstances  in- 
accurately observed.  There  is  the  owl.  How 
little  do  the  people  of  England  know  of  him — 
even  of  him  the  barn-door  and  domestic  owl — 
yea,  even  at  this  day — we  had  almost  said  the 
Poets !  Shakspeare,  of  course,  and  his  freres, 
knew  him  to  be  a  merry  fellow — quite  a  mad- 
cap— and  so  do  now  all  the  Lakers.  But 
Cowper  had  his  doubts  about  it;  and  Gray,  as 
every  schoolboy  knows,  speaks  of  him  like  an 
old  wife.  The  force  of  folly  can  go  no  further, 
than  to  imagine  an  owl  complaining  to  the 
moon  of  being  disturbed  by  people  walking  in 
a  country  churchyard.  And  among  all  our 
present  bardlings,  the  owl  is  supposed  to  be 
constantly  on  the  eve  of  suicide.  If  it  were 
really  so,  he  ought  in  a  Christian  country  to 
be  pitied,  not  pelted,  as  he  is  sure  to  be  when 
accidentally  seen  in  sunlight — for  melancholy 
is  a  misfortune,  especially  when  hereditary  and 
constitutional,  as  it  is  popularly  believed  to  be 
in  the  Black-billed  Bubo,  and  certainly  was  in 
Dr.  Johnson.  In  young  masters  and  misses 
we  can  pardon  any  childishness;  but  we  can- 
not pardon  the  antipathy  to  the  owl  entertained 
by  the  manly  minds  of  grown-up  English  clod- 
hoppers, ploughmen,  and  threshers.  They  keep 
terriers  to  kill  rats  and  mice  in  barns,  and  they 
shoot  the  owls,  any  one  of  whom  we  would 
cheerfully  back  against  the  famous  Billy.  "The 
very  commonest  observation  teaches  us,"  says 
the  author  of  the  "  Gardens  of  the  Menagerie," 
"that  they  are  in  reality  the  best  and  most  effi- 
cient protectors  of  our  cornfields  and  grana- 
ries from  the  devastating  pillage  of  the  swarms 
of  mice  and  other  small  rodents."  Nay,  by  their 
constant  destruction  of  these  petty  but  danger- 
ous enemies,  the  owls,  he  says,  "earn  an  un- 
questionable title  to  be  regarded  as  among  the 
most  active  of  the  friends  of  man;  a  title  which 
only  one  or  two  among  them  occasionally  for- 
feit by  their  aggressions  on  the  defenceless 
poultry."  Roger  or  Dolly  beholds  him  in  the 
act  of  murdering  a  duckling,  and,  like  other 
light-headed,  giddy,  unthinking  creatures,  they 
forget  all  the  service  he  has  done  the  farm,  the 
parish,  and  the  state ;  he  is  shot  in  the  act,  and 
nailed,  wide-extended  in  cruel  spread-eagle,  on 
the  barn-door.  Others  again  call  him  dull  and 
short-sighted — nay,  go  the  length  of  asserting 
that  he  is  stupid — as  stupid  as  an  owl.  Why, 
our  excellent  fellow,  when  you  have  the  tithe 
of  the  talent  of  the  common  owl,  and  know 
half  as  well  how  to  use  it,  you  may  claim  the 
medal.    • 

The  eagles,  kites,  and  hawks,  hunt  by  day. 
The  Owl  is  the  Nimrod  of  the  Night.  Then, 
like  one  who  shall  be  nameless,  he  sails  about 
seeking  those  whom  he  may  devour.  To  do 
him  justice,  he  has  a  truly  ghost-like  head  and 
shoulders  of  his  own.     What  horror  to  the 


226 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


"  small  birds  rejoicing  in  spring's  leafy  bow- 
ers," fast-locked  we  were  going  to  say  in  each 
other's  arras,  but  sitting  side  by  side  in  the 
same  cozey  nuptial  nest,  to  be  startled  out  of 
their  love-dreams  by  the  great  lamp-eyed, 
beaked  face  of  a  horrible  monster  with  horns, 
picked  out  of  feathered  bed,  and  wafted  off  in 
one  bunch,  within  talons,  to  pacify  a  set  of 
hissing,  and  snappish,  and  shapeless  powder- 
puffs,  in  the  loophole  of  a  barn  ]  In  a  house 
where  a  cat  is  kept,  mice  are  much  to  be  pitied. 
They  are  so  infatuated  with  the  smell  of  a  re- 
spectable larder,  that  to  leave  the  premises, 
they  confess,  is  impossible.  Yet  every  hour — 
nay,  every  minute  of  their  lives — must  they  be 
in  the  fear  of  being  leaped  out  upon  by  four 
velvet  paws,  and  devoured  with  kisses  from  a 
whiskered  mouth,  and  a  throat  full  of  that  in- 
comprehensible music — a  purr.  Life,  on  such 
terms,  seems  to  us  any  thing  but  desirable. 
But  the  truth  is,  that  mice  in  the  fields  are  not 
a  whit  belter  off.  Owls  are  cats  with  wings. 
Skimming  along  the  grass  tops,  they  stop  in  a 
momentary  hover,  let  drop  a  talon,  and  away 
with  Mus,  his  wife,  and  small  family  of  blind 
children.  It  is  the  white,  or  yellow,  or  barn,  or 
church,  or  Screech-Owl,  or  Gillov-Howlet,  that 
behaves  in  this  way;  and  he  makes  no  bones 
of  a  mouse,  uniformly  swallowing  him  alive. 
Our  friend,  we  suspect,  though  no  drunkard,  is 
somewhat  of  a  glutton.  In  one  thing  we  agree 
M'ith  him,  that  there  is  no  sort  of  harm  in  a 
heavy  supper.  There,  however,  we  are  guilty 
of  some  confusion  of  ideas  ;  for  what  to  us, 
who  rise  in  the  morning,  seems  a  supper,  is  to 
hiin  who  gets  up  at  evening  twilight,  a  break- 
fast. We  therefore  agree  with  him  in  think- 
ing that  there  is  no  sort  of  harm  in  a  heavy 
breakfast.  After  having  passed  a  pleasant 
night  in  eating  and  llirting,  he  goes  to  bed  be- 
times, about  four  o'clock  in  the  morning;  and, 
as  Bewick  observes,  makes  a  blowing,  hissing 
noise,  resembling  the  snoring  of  a  man.  In- 
deed, nothing  can  be  more  diverting  t^i  a  per- 
son annoyed  by  blue  devils,  than  to  look  at  a 
White  Owl  and  his  wife  asleep.  With  their 
heads  gently  inclined  towards  each  other,  there 
they  keep  snoring  away  like  any  Christian 
couple.  Should  the  one  make  a  pause,  the 
other  that  instant  awakes,  and,  fearing  some- 
thing may  be  wrong  with  his  spouse,  opens  a 
pair  of  glimmering  winking  eyes,  and  inspects 
the  adjacent  physiognomy  with  the  scrutiniz- 
ing stare  of  a  village  apothecar}'.  If  all  be 
right,  the  concert  is  resumed,  the  snore  some- 
times degenerating  into  a  snort  of  snivel,  and 
the  snivel  into  a  blowing  hiss.  First  time  we 
heard  this  noise  was  in  a  churchyard  when  we 
■were  mere  boys,  having  ventured  in  after  dark 
to  catch  the  minister's  colt  for  a  gallop  over  to 
the  parish-capital,  where  there  was  a  dancing- 
school  ball.  There  had  been  a  nest  of  Owls 
in  some  hole  in  the  spire ;  but  we  never 
doubted  for  a  moment  that  the  noise  of  snor- 
ing, blowing,  hissing,  and  snapping  proceeded 
from  a  testy  old  gentleman  that  had  been  buried 
that  forenoon,  and  had  come  alive  again  a  day 
after  the  fair.  Had  we  reasoned  the  matter  a 
little,  we  must  soon  have  convinced  ourselves 
that  there  was  no  ground  for  alarm  to  us  at 
least ,  for  the  noise  was  like  that  of  some  one 


[  half  stifled,  and  little  likely  to  heave  up  from 
above  him  a  six-feet-deep  load  of  earth — to  say 
i  nothing  of  the  improbability  of  his  being  able 
to  unscrew  the  colfin  from  the  inside.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  we  cleared  about  a  dozen  of  decent 
tombstones  at  three  jumps — the  fourth  took  us 
over  a  wall  five  feet  high  within  and  about 
fifteen  without,  and  landed  us,  with  a  squash, 
in  a  cabbage-garden  inclosed  on  the  other  three 
sides  by  a  house  and  a  holly-hedge.  The  house 
was  the  sexton's,  who,  apprehending  the  stra- 
mash  to  proceed  from  a  resurreciionary  sur- 
geon mistaken  in  his  latitude,  thrust  out  a  long 
duck-gun  from  a  window  in  the  thatch,  and 
swore  to  blow  out  our  brains  if  we  did  not  in- 
stantly surrender  ourselves,  and  deliver  up  the 
corpse.  It  was  in  vain  to  cry  out  our  name, 
which  he  knew  as  well  as  his  own.  He  was 
deaf  to  reason,  and  would  not  withdraw  his 
patierero  till  we  had  laid  down  the  corpse.  He 
swore  that  he  saw  the  sack  in  the  moonlight. 
This  was  a  horse-cloth  with  which  we  had  in- 
tended to  saddle  the  "  cowle,"  and  that  had  re- 
mained, during  the  supernatural  agency  under 
which  we  laboured,  clutched  unconsciously 
and  convulsively  in  our  grasp.  ^<ong  was  it 
ere  Davie  Donald  would  see  us  in  our  true 
light — but  at  length  he  drew  on  his  Kilmar- 
nock nightcap,  and,  coming  out  with  a  bouet, 
let  us  through  the  trance  and  out  of  the  front 
door,  thoroughly  convinced,  till  we  read  Be- 
wick, that  old  Southfield  was  not  dead,  although 
in  a  very  bad  way  indeed.  Let  this  be  a  lesson 
to  schoolboys  not  to  neglect  the  science  of  na- 
tural history,  and  to  study  the  character  of  the 
While  Owl. 

Owis — both  While  and  common  Brown,  are 
not  only  useful  in  a  mountainous  country,  but 
highly  ornamental.  How  serenely  beautiful 
their  noiseless  (light;  a  flake  of  snow  is  not 
winnowed  through  the  air  more  softly-silent ! 
GliiHng  along  the  dark  shadows  of  a  wood, 
how  spiritual  the  motion — how  like  the  thought 
of  a  dream!  And  then,  during  the  hushed 
midnight  hours,  how  jocund  the  whoop  and 
hollo  from  the  heart  of  sycamore — gray  rock, 
or  ivyed  Tower!  How  the  Owls  of  Winder- 
mere must  laugh  at  the  silly  Lakers,  that  under 
the  garish  eye  of  day,  enveloped  in  clouds  of 
dust,  whirl  along  in  rattling  post-shays  in  pur 
suit  of  the  picturesque!  Why,  the  least  ima 
ginative  Owl  that  ever  hunted  mice  by  moon- 
light on  the  banks  of  Windermere,  must  know 
the  character  of  its  scenery  bet'.er  than  any 
poetaster  that  ever  dined  on  char  at  Bowness 
or  Lowood.  The  long  quivering  lines  of  light 
illumining  some  silvan  isle — the  evening-star 
shining  from  the  water  to  its  counterpart  in  the 
sky — the  glorious  phenometion  of  the  double 
moon — the  night-colours  of  the  w^oods — and, 
once  in  the  three  years  perhaps,  that  loveliest 
and  most  lustrous  of  celestial  forms,  the  lunar 
rainbow — all  these  and  many  more  beauteous 
and  magnificent  sights  are  familiar  to  the  Owls 
of  Windermere.  And  who  know  half  so  well 
as  they  do  the  echoes  of  Furness,  and  Apple- 
thwaite,  and  Loughrigg,  and  Langdale,  all  the 
way  on  to  Dungeon-Gill  and  Pavey-Ark,  Scaw- 
fell  and  the  Great  Gable,  and  that  sea  of  moun- 
tains, of  which  every  wave  has  a  name  ?  Mid- 
night— when  asleep  so  still  and  silent — seems 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


227 


inspired  with  the  joyous  spirit  of  the  Owls  in 
their  revelry — and  answers  to  their  mirth  and 
merriment  through  all  her  clouds.  The  Mop- 
ing Owl,  indeed! — the  Boding  Owl,  forsooth  ! 
— the  Melancholy  Owl,  you  blockhead! — why, 
they  are  the  most  cheerful — joy-portending — 
and  exulting  of  God's  creatures  !  Their  tlow 
of  animal  spirits  is  incessant — crowing-cocks 
are  a  joke  to  them — blue  devils  are  to  them 
unknown — not  one  hypochondriac  in  a  thou- 
sand barns — and  the  Man-in-lhe-Moon  acknow- 
ledges that  he  never  heard  one  of  them  utter  a 
complaint. 

But  what  say  ye  to  an  Owl,  not  only  like  an 
eagle  in  plumage,  but  equal  to  the  largest  eagle 
in  .size — and  therefore  named,  from  the  King 
of  Birds,  the  Eagle  Owl.  Mr.  Selby  !  you  have 
done  justice  to  the  monarch  of  the  Bubos.  We 
hold  ourselves  to  be  persons  of  tolerable  cou- 
rage, as  the  world  goes — but  we  could  not 
answer  for  ourselves  showing  fight  with  such 
a  customer,  were  he  to  waylay  us  by  night  in 
a  wood.  In  comparison.  Jack  Thurtell  looked 
harmless.  No — that  bold,  bright-eyed  mur- 
derer, with  Horns  on  his  head  like  those  on 
Michael  Angelo's  statue  of  Moses,  would  never 
have  had  the  cruel  cowardice  to  cut  the  wea- 
sand,  and  smash  out  the  brains  of  such  a  mis- 
erable wretch  as  Weare  !  True  he  is  fond  of 
blood — and  where's  the  harm  in  thaf?  It  is 
his  nature.  But  if  there  be  any  truth  in  the 
science  of  Physiognomy — and  be  that  of  Phre- 
nology what  it  will,  most  assuredly  there  is 
truth  in  it — the  original  of  that  Owl,  for  whose 
portrait  the  world  is  indebted  to  Mr.  Selby,  and 
Sir  Thomas  Lawrence  never  painted  a  finer 
one  of  Prince  or  Potentate  of  any  Holy  or  Un- 
holy .\lliance,  must  have  despised  Probert  from 
the  very  bottom  of  his  heart.  No  prudent 
Eagle  but  would  be  exceedingly  desirous  of 
keeping  on  good  terms  with  him — devilish  shy, 
i'  faith,  of  giving  him  any  otTence  by  the  least 
hauteur  of  manner,  or  the  slightest  violation  of 
etiquette.  An  Owl  of  this  character  and  cali- 
bre, is  not  afraid  to  show  bis  horns  at  mid-day 
on  the  mountain.  The  Fox  is  not  over  and 
above  fond  of  him — and  his  claws  can  kill  a 
cub  at  a  blow.  The  Doe  sees  the  monster  sit- 
ting on  the  back  of  her  fawn,  and  maternal 
instinct  overcome  by  horror,  bounds  into  the 
brake,  and  leaves  the  pretty  creature  to  its 
fate.  Thank  Heaven,  he  is,  in  Great  Britain, 
a  rare  bird  !  Tempest-driven  across  the  North- 
ern Ocean  from  his  native  forests  in  Russia, 
an  occasional  visitant  he  "  frightens  this  Isle 
from  its  propriety,"  and  causes  a  hideous 
screaming  through  every  wood  he  haunts. 
Some  years  ago,  one  was  killed  on  the  upland 
moors  in  the  county  of  Durham — and,  of 
course,  paid  a  visit  to  Mr.  Bullock's  Museum. 
Eagle-like  in  all  its  habits,  it  builds  its  nest  on 
high  rocks — sometimes  on  the  loftiest  trees — 
and  seldom  lays  more  than  two  eggs.  One  is 
one  more  than  enough — and  we  who  fly  by 
night  trust  never  to  fall  in  with  a  live  speci- 
men of  the  Strix-Bubo  of  Linnceus. 

But  largest  and  loveliest  of  all  the  silent 
night-gliders — the  Sxowt  Owl  !  Gentle  reader 
—if  you  long  to  see  his  picture,  we  have  told 
you  where  it  may  be  found; — and  in  the  Col- 
lege Museum,  within  a  glass  vase  on  the  cen- 


tral table  in  the  Palace  of  Stuffed  Birds,  you 
may  admire  his  outward  very  self — the  sem- 
blance of  the  Owl  he  was  when  he  used  to  eye 
the  moon  shining  over  the  Northern  Sea: — 
but  if  you  would  see  the  noble  and  beautiful 
Creature  himself,  in  all  his  living  glory,  you 
must  seek  him  through  the  long  summer  twi- 
light among  the  Orkney  or  the  Shetland  Isles. 
The  Snowy  Owl  dearly  loves  the  snow — and" 
there  is,  we  believe,  a  tradition  among  them, 
that  their  first  ancestor  and  ancestress  rose  up 
together  from  a  melting  snow-wreath  on  the 
very  last  day  of  a  Greenland  winter,  when  all 
at  once  the  bright  fields  re-appear.  The  race 
still  inhabits  that  frozen  coast — being  com- 
mon, indeed,  through  all  the  regions  of  the 
Arctic  Circle.  It  is  numerous  on  the  shores 
of  Hudson's  Bay,  in  Norwa}--,  Sweden,  and 
Lapland — but  in  the  temperate  parts  of  Europe 
and  America,  "  rara  avis  in  terris,  nigroque 
simillima  cygno." 

We  defy  all  the  tailors  on  the  face  of  the 
habitable  globe;  and  what  countless  cross- 
legged  fractional  parts  of  men — who,  like  the 
beings  of  whom  they  are  constituents,  are 
thought  to  double  their  numbers  every  thirty 
years — must  not  the  four  quarters  of  the  earth, 
in  their  present  advanced  state  of  civilization, 
contain  ! — we  def^y,  we  say,  all  the  tailors  on 
the  face  of  the  habitable  globe  to  construct 
such  a  surtout  as  that  of  the  Snowy  Owl,  co- 
vering him,  with  equal  luxury  and  comfort,  in 
summer's  heat  and  winter's  cold.  The  ele- 
ments, in  all  their  freezing  fury,  cannot  reach 
the  bocfy  of  the  bird  through  that  beautiful 
down-mail.  Well  guarded  are  the  openings 
of  those  great  eyes.  Neither  the  driving  dust, 
nor  the  searching  sleet,  nor  the  sharp  frozen 
snow-stoure,  give  him  the  ophthalmia.  Gutta 
Serena  is  to  him  unknown — no  snowy  Owl 
was  ever  couched  for  cataract — no  need  has 
he  for  an  oculist,  should  he  live  an  hundred 
years ;  and  were  they  to  attempt  any  operation 
on  his  lens  or  iris,  how  he  would  hoot  at  Alex- 
ander and  Wardrope ! 

Night,  doubtless,  is  the  usual  season  of  his 
prey;  but  he  does  not  shun  the  day,  and  is 
sometimes  seen  hovering  unhurt  in  the  sun- 
shine. The  red  or  black  grouse  flies  as  if 
pursued  b}''  a  ghost;  but  the  Snowy  Owl,  little 
slower  than  the  eagle,  in  dreadful  silence  over- 
takes his  flight,  and  then  death  is  sudden  and 
sure.  Hawking  is,  or  was,  a  noble  pastime— 
and  we  have  now  prevented  our  eyes  from 
glancing  at  Jer-falcon,  Peregrine, or  Goshawk* 
butOwiing,  we  do  not  doubt,  would  be  noways 
inferior  sport ;  and  were  it  to  become  prevalent 
in  modern  times,  as  Hawking  was  in  times  of 
old,  why,  each  lady,  as  Venus  already  fair,  with 
an  Owl  on  her  wrist,  would  look  as  wise  as 
Minerva. 

But  our  soul  sickens  at  all  those  dreams  of 
blood  !  and  fain  would  turn  away  from  fierce 
eye,  cruel  beak,  and  tearing  talon — war-wea- 
pons of  them  that  delight  in  wounds  and  death 
— to  the  contemplation  of  creatures  whose 
characteristics  are  the  love  of  solitude — shy 
gentleness  of  manner — the  tender  devotion  of 
mutual  attachment — and,  in  field  or  forest,  a 
lifelong  passion  for  peace. 


228 


KECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


FOURTH  CANTICLE. 

Welcome  then  the  Ri>g-Dove — the  Quest 
—or  CcsHAT,  for  that  is  the  very  bird  we  have 
had  in  our  imagination.  There  is  his  full- 
length  portrait,  stealthily  sketched  as  the  Soli- 
tary was  sitting  on  a  tree.  Yon  must  catch 
•him  napping,  indeed,  before  he  will  allow  you 
an  opportunity  of  colouring  him  on  the  spot 
from  nature.  It  is  not  that  he  is  more  jealous 
or  suspicious  of  man's  approach  than  other 
bird ;  for  never  shall  we  suffer  ourselves  to 
believe  that  any  tribe  of  the  descendants  of  the 
Dove  that  brought  to  the  Ark  the  olive  tidings 
of  re-appearing  earth,  can  in  their  hearts  hate 
or  fear  the  race  of  the  children  of  man.  But 
Nature  has  made  the  Cushat  a  lover  of  the 
still  forest-gloom;  and  therefore,  when  his 
lonesome  haunts  are  disturbed  or  intruded  on, 
he  flies  to  some  yet  profounder,  some  more 
central  solitude,  and  folds  his  wing  in  the 
hermitage  of  a  Yew,  sown  in  the  time  of  the 
ancient  Britons. 

It  is  the  Stock-Dove,  we  believe,  not  the 
Ring-Dove,  from  whom  are  descended  all  the 
varieties  of  the  races  of  Doves.  What  tenderer 
praise  can  we  give  them  all,  than  that  the 
Dove  is  the  emblem  of  Innocence,  and  that  the 
name  of  innocence — notof  frailtv — is  Woman? 
When  Hamlet  said  the  reverse,  he  was  think- 
ing, you  know,  of  the  Queen — not  of  Ophelia. 
Is  not  woman  by  nature  chaste  as  the  Dove — 
as  the  Dove  faithful?  Silting  all  alone  wjlh 
her  babe  in  her  bosom,  is  she  not  as*a  Dove 
devoted  to  her  own  nest?  Murmureth  she  not 
a  pleasant  welcome  to  her  wearied  home-re- 
turned husband,  even  like  the  Dove  among  the 
woodlands  when  her  mate  re-alights  on  the 
pine?  Should  her  spouse  be  taken  from  her 
and  disappear,  doth  not  htr  heart  sometimes 
break,  as  they  say  it  happens  to  the  Dove? 
But  oftener  far,  findeth  not  the  widow  that  her 
orphans  are  still  fed  by  her  own  hand,  that  is 
filled  with  good  things  by  Provi<lence;  till 
grown  up,  and  able  to  shift  for  themselves, 
away  they  go — just  as  the  poor  Dove  lamentcth 
for  her  mate  in  the  snare  of  the  fowler,  yet 
feedeth  her  young  continually  through  the 
whole  day,  till  away  too  go  they — alas,  in 
neither  ca<e,  perhaps,  ever  more  to  return  ! 

We  dislike  all  favouritism,  all  foolish  and 
capricious  partiality  for  particular  bird  or 
beast;  but  dear,  old,  sacred  associations,  will 
tell  upon  all  one  thinks  or  feels  towards  any 
place  or  person  in  this  world  of  ours,  near  or 
remote.  God  forbid  we  should  criticise  the 
C^ushat !  We  desire  to  speak  of  him  as  tender- 
ly as  of  a  friend  buried  in  our  early  youth. 
Too  true  it  is,  that  often  and  oft,  when  school- 
Ixiys,  have  we  striven  to  steal  upon  him  in  his 
solitude,  and  to  shoot  him  to  death.  In  morals, 
at>d  in  religion,  it  would  be  heterodox  to  deny 
that  the  will  is  as  the  deed.  Yet  in  cases  of 
high  and  low-way  robbery  and  murder,  there 
^ocs  seem,  treating  the  subject  not  in  philoso- 
phical but  popular  style,  to  be  some  little  dif- 
ference between  the  two;  at  least  we  hope  so, 
for  otherwise  we  can  with  dilliculty  imagine 
me  person  not  deserving  to  be  ordered  for  ex- 
f.c.uli  in,  on  Wednesday  next,  between  the  hours 


of  eight  and  nine  ante-meridian.  Happily,  how- 
ever, for  our  future  peace  of  mind,  and  not 
improbably  for  the  whole  conformation  of  our 
character,  our  Guardian  Genius — (every  boy 
has  one  constantly  at  his  side,  both  during 
school  and  play  hours,  though  it  must  be  con- 
fessed sometimes  a  little  remiss  in  his  duty, 
for  the  nature  even  of  anselical  beings  is  im- 
perfect)— always  so  contrived  it,  that  with  all 
our  cunning  we  never  could  kill  a  Cushat. 
Many  a  long  hour — indeed  whole  Saturdays — 
have  we  lain  perdue  among  broom  and  whins, 
the  beautiful  green  and  yellow  skirting  of 
sweet  Scotia's  woods,  watching  his  egress  or 
ingress,  our  gun  ready  cocked,  and  finger  on 
trigger,  that  on  the  flapping  of  his  wings  not  a 
moment  might  be  lost  in  bringing  him  to  the 
ground.  But  couch  where  we  might,  no  Cushat 
ever  came  near  our  insidious  lair.  Now  and 
then  a  Magpie — birds  who,  by  the  by,  when 
they  suspect  you  of  any  intention  of  shooting 
them,  are  as  distant  in  their  manners  as 
Cushats  themselves,  otherwise  as  impudent 
as  Cockneys — would  come,  hopping  in  con- 
tinual tail-jerks,  with  his  really  beautiful  plum- 
age, if  one  could  bring  one's-self  to  think  it  so, 
and  then  sport  the  pensive  within  twenty 
yards  of  the  muzzle  of  Brown-Bess,  impatient  to 
let  fly.  But  our  soul  burned,  our  heart  panted 
for  a  Cushat ;  and  in  that  strong  fever-fit  of 
passion,  could  we  seek  to  slake  our  thirst  for 
that  wild  blood  with  the  murder  of  a  thievish 
eavesdropper  of  a  Pye?  The  Blackbird,  too, 
often  dropt  out  of  the  thicket  into  an  open 
glade  in  the  hazel-shaws,  and  the  distinctness 
of  his  yellow  bill  showed  he  was  far  within 
shot-iange.  Yet,  let  us  do  ourselves  justice, 
we  never  in  all  our  born  days  dreamt  of  shoot- 
ing a  Blackbird — him  that  scares  away  sad- 
ness from  the  woodland  twilight  gloom,  at 
morn  or  eve;  whose  anthem,  even  in  those 
dim  days  when  Nature  herself  it  might  be  well 
thought  were  melancholy,  forceth  the  firma- 
ment to  ring  with  joy.  Once  "  the  snow-white 
cony  sought  its  evening  meal,"  unconscious 
of  our  dangerous  vicinity,  issuing  with  erected 
ears  from  the  wood  edge.  That  last  was,  we 
confess,  such  a  temptation  to  touch  the  trigger, 
that  had  we  resisted  it  we  must  have  been 
either  more  or  less  than  boy.  We  f  red ;  and 
kicking  up  his  heels,  doubtless  in  fright,  but 
as  it  then  seemed  to  us,  during  ourdisappoint- 
ment.  much  rather  in  frolic — nay,  absolute 
division — away  bounced  Master  Rabbit  to  his 
burrow, ^without  one  panicle  of  soft  silvery 
wool  on  sward  or  bush,  to  bear  witness  to  our 
unerring  aim.  As  if  the  branch  on  which  he 
had  been  silting  were  broken,  away  then  went 
the  crashing  Cushat  through  the  intermingling 
sprays.  The  free  flapping  of  his  wings  was 
soon  heard  in  the  air  above  the  tree-tops,  and 
ere  we  could  recover  from  our  almost  bitter 
amazement,  the  creature  was  murmuring  to 
his  mate  on  her  shallow  nest — a  far-t>fl"  mur- 
mur, solitary  and  profound — to  reach  unto 
which,  through  the  tangled  mazes  of  the  forest 
would  have  re(]uired  a  separate  sense,  instinct, 
or  faculty,  which  we  did  not  possess.  So, 
skulking  out  of  our  hiding-place,  we  made  no 
comment  on  the  remark  of  a  homeward-plod- 
ding labourer,  who  had  heard  the  report,  and 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


229 


now  smelt  the  powder — "  Cushats  are  ga)'^an' 
kittle  birds  to  kill" — but  returned,  with  our 
shooting-bag  as  empty  as  our  stomach,  to  the 
Manse. 

"  Why  do  the  birds  sing  on  Sunday  1"  said 
once  a  little  boy  to  us — and  we  answered  him 
in  a  lyrical  ballad,  which  we  have  lost.  But 
although  the  birds  certainly  do  sing  on  Sunday 
— behaviour  that  with  our  small  gentle  Cal  viuist, 
who  dearly  loved  them,  caused  some  doubts  of 
their  being  so  innocent  as  during  the  week- 
days they  appeared  to  be — we  cannot  set  down 
their  fault  to  the  score  of  ignorance.  Is  it  in 
the  holy  superstition  of  the  world- wearied  heart 
that  man  believes  the  inferior  creatures  to  be 
conscious  of  the  calm  of  the  Sabbath,  and  that 
they  know  it  to  be  the  day  of  our  resti  Or 
is  it  that  we  transfer  the  feelins  of  our  inward 
calm  to  all  the  goings-on  of  Nature,  and  thus 
imbue  them  with  a  character  of  reposing 
sanctity,  existing  onjy  in  our  own  spirits?  Both 
solutions  are  true.  The  instincts  of  those 
creatures  we  know  only  in  their  symptoms 
and  their  effects,  in  the  wonderful  range  of 
action  over  which  they  reign.  Of  the  instincts 
themselves — as  feelings  or  ideas — we  know 
not  any  thing,  nor  ever  can  know;  for  an  im- 
passable gulf  separates  the  nature  of  those  that 
may  l>e  to  perish,  from  ours  that  are  to  live  for 
ever.  But  their  power  of  memory,  we  must 
believe  is  not  only  capable  of  minutest  reten- 
tion, but  also  stretches  back  to  afar — and  some 
power  or  other  they  do  possess,  that  gathers  up 
the  past  experience  into  rules  of  conduct  that 
guide  them  in  their  solitary  or  gregarious  life. 
Why,  therefore,  should  not  the  birds  of  Scut- 
land  know  the  Sabbath-day  1  On  that  day  the 
Water-Ouzel  is  never  disturbed  by  angler 
among  the  murmurs  of  his  own  water-fall ; 
and  as  he  flits  down  the  banks  and  braes  of  the 
burn,  he  sees  no  motion,  he  hears  no  sound 
about  the  cottage  that  is  the  boundary  of  his 
furthest  flight — for  "  the  dizzying  mill-wheel 
rests."  The  merry-nodding  rooks,  that  in 
spring-time  keep  following  the  very  heels 
of  the  ploughman — may  they  not  know  it  to 
be  Sabbath,  when  all  the  horses  are  standing 
idle  in  the  field,  or  taking  a  gallop  by  them- 
selves round  the  head-rigg  1  Quick  of  hearing 
are  birds — one  and  all — and  in  every  action 
of  their  lives  are  obedient  to  sounds.  May  they 
not,  then — do  they  not  connect  a  feeling  of  per- 
fect safety  with  the  tinkle  of  the  small  kirk- 
bell  !  The  very  jay  himself  is  not  shy  of  peo- 
ple on  their  way  to  worship.  The  magpie, 
that  never  sits  more  than  a  minute  at  a  time 
in  the  same  place  on  a  Saturd^^v,  will  on  the 
Sabbath  remain  on  the  kirKyard  wall  with  all 
the  composure  of  a  dove.  The  whole  feath- 
ered creation  know  our  hours  of  sleep.  They 
awake  before  us  ;  and  ere  the  earliest  labourer 
has  said  hjs  prayers,  have  not  the  woods  and 
valleys  been  ringing  with  their  hymns  ?  Why, 
therefore,  may  not  they,  who  know,  each  week- 
day, the  hour  of  our  lying  down  and  our  rising 
up,  know  also  the  day  of  our  general  rest] 
The  animals  whose  lot  is  labour,  shall  they 
not  know  it  1  Yes ;  the  horse  on  that  day 
sleeps  in  shade  or  sunshine  without  fear  of 
being  disturbed — his  neck  forgets  the  galling 
collar,  "  and  there  are  forty  feeding  like  one," 


all  well  knowing  that  their  fresh  meal  on  the 
tender  herbage  will  not  be  broken  in  upon  be- 
fore the  dews  of  next  morning,  ushering  in  a 
new  day  to  them  of  toil  or  travel. 

So  much  for  our  belief  in  the  knowledge, 
instinctive  or  from  a  sort  of  reason,  possessed, 
by  the  creatures  of  the  inferior  creation,  of  the 
heaven-appointed  Sabbath  to  man  and  beast. 
But  it  is  also  true  that  we  transfer  our  in- 
ward feelings  to  their  outward  condition,  and 
with  our  religious  spirit  imbue  all  the  ongoings 
of  animated  and  even  inanimated  life.  There 
is  always  a  shade  of  melancholy,  a  tinge  of 
pensiveness,  a  touch  of  pathos,  in  all  profound 
rest.  Perhaps  because  it  is  so  much  in  contrast 
with  the  turmoil  of  our  ordinary  being.  Per- 
haps because  the  soul,  when  undisturbed,  will, 
from  the  impulse  of  its  own  divine  nature,  have 
high,  solemn,  and  awful  thoughts.  In  such 
slate  it  transmutes  all  things  into  a  show 
of  sympathy  with  itself.  The  church-spire, 
rising  high  above  the  smoke  and  stir  of  a 
town,  when  struck  by  the  sun-fire,  seems,  on 
market-day,  a  tall  building  in  the  air,  that  may 
serve  as  a  guide  to  people  from  a  distance 
flocking  into  bazaars.  The  same  church-spire, 
were  its  loud-tongued  bell  to  call  from  aloft  on 
the  gathering  multitude  below,  to  celebrate  the 
anniversary  of  some  great  victory,  Waterloo 
or  Trafalgar,  would  appear  to  stretch  up  its 
stature  triumphantly  into  the  sky — so  much 
the  more  triumphantly,  if  the  standard  of  Eng- 
land were  floating  from  its  upper  battlements. 
But  to  the  devout  eye  of  faith,  doth  it  not  seem 
to  express  its  own  character,  when  on  the  Sab- 
bath it  performs  no  other  office  than  to  point 
to  heaven  1 

So  much  for  the  second  solution.  But  in- 
dependently of  both,  no  wonder  that  all  na 
ture  seems  to  rest  on  the  Sabbath;  for  it  doth 
rest — all  of  it,  at  least,  that  appertains  to  man 
and  his  condition.  If  the  Fourth  Command- 
ment be  kept — at  rest  is  all  the  household — 
and  all  the  fields  round  it  are  at  rest.  Calm 
flows  the  current  of  human  life,  on  that  gra- 
cious day,  throughout  all  the  glens  and  valleys 
of  Scotland,  as  a  stream  that  wimples  in  the 
morning  sunshine,  freshened  but  not  flooded 
with  the  soft-falling  rain  of  a  summer-night. 
The  spiral  smoke-wreath  above  the  cottage  is 
not  calmer  than  the  motion  within.  True,  that 
the  wood-warblers  do  not  cease  their  songs ; 
but  the  louder  they  sing,  the  deeper  is  the  still- 
ness. And  what  perfect  blessedness,  when  it 
is  only  joy  that  is  astir  in  rest! 

Loud-flapping  Cushat!  it  was  thou  that  in- 
spiredst  these  solemn  fancies;  and  we  have 
only  to  wish  thee,  for  thy  part  contributed  to 
our  Recreations,  now  that  the  acorns  of  autumn 
must  be  wellnigh  consumed,  many  a  plentiful 
repast,  amid  the  multitude  of  thy  now  congre- 
gated comrades  in  the  cleared  stubble  lands — 
as  severe  weather  advances,  and  the  ground 
becomes  covered  with  snow,  regales  undis- 
turbed by  fowler,  on  the  tops  of  turnip,  rape, 
and  other  cruciform  plants,  which  all  of  thy 
race  affect  so  passionately — and  soft  blow  the 
sea-breezes  on  thy  unruffled  plumage,  wheu 
thou  takest  thy  winter's  walk  with  kindred 
myriads  on  the  shelly  shore,  and  for  a  season 
minglest  with  gull  and  seamew— apart  every 


230 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


tribe,  one  from  the  other,  in  the  province  of  its 
own  peculiar  instinct — yet  all  mysteriously 
taught  to  feed  or  sleep  together  within  the  roar 
or  margin  of  the  main. 

Sole-sitting  Cushat!  We  see  thee  through 
the  yew-tree's  shade,  on  some  day  of  the  olden 
time,  but  when  or  where  we  remember  not — 
for  what  has  place  or  time  to  do  with  the  vision 
of  a  dream  1  That  we  see  thee  is  all  we  know, 
and  that  serenely  beautiful  thou  art!  Most 
pleasant  is  it  to  dream,  and  to  know  we  dream ! 
By  sweet  volition  we  keep  ourselves  half 
asleep  and  half  awake;  and  all  our  visions  of 
thought,  as  they  go  swimming  along,  partake 
at  once  of  reality  and  imagitiation.  Fiction 
and  truth — clouds,  shadows,  phantoms  and 
phantasms — ether,  sunshine,  substantial  forms 
and  sounds  that  have  a  being,  blending  together 
in  a  scene  created  by  us,  and  partly  impressed 
upon  us,  and  which  one  motion  of  the  head  on 
the  pillow  may  dissolve,  or  deepen  into  more 
oppressive  delight!  In  some  such  dreaming 
.state  of  mind  are  we  now;  and,  gentle  reader, 
if  thou  art  awake,  lay  aside  the  visionary  vo- 
lume, or  read  a  little  longer,  and  likely  enough 
is  it  that  thou  too  mayest  fall  half  asleep.  If  so, 
let  thy  drowsy  eyes  still  pursue  the  glimvnering 
paragraphs — and  wafied  away  wilt  thou  feel 
thyself  to  be  into  the  heart  of  a  Highland  fo- 
rest, that  knows  no  bounds  but  those  of  the 
uncertain  sky. 

Away  from  our  remembrance  fades  the  noisy 
world  of  men  into  a  silent  glimmer — and  now 
it  is  all  no  more  than  a  mere  faint  thought. 
On — on — on!  through  briery  brake — matted 
thicket — grassy  glade — On — on — on!  further 
into  the  Forest!  What  a  confusion  of  huge 
stones,  rocks,  knolls,  all  tumbled  together  into 
a  chaos — not  without  its  stern  and  sterile 
beauty!  Still  are  there,  above,  blue  glimpses 
of  the  sky — deep  though  the  umbrage  be,  and 
wide-llung  the  arms  of  the  oaks,  and  of  pines 
in  their  native  wilderness  gigantic  as  oaks, 
and  extending  as  broad  a  shadow.  Now  the 
firmament  has  vanished — and  all  is  twilight. 
Immense  stems,  "  in  number  without  number 
numberless," — bewildering  eye  and  soul — all 
still — silent — steadfast — and  so  would  they  be 
in  a  storm.  For  what  storm — let  it  range  aloft 
as  it  might,  till  the  surface  of  the  forest  toss 
and  roar  like  the  sea — could  force  its  path 
through  these  many  million  trunks?  The 
thunder-stone  might  split  that  giant  there — 
how  vast!  how  magnificent! — but  the  brother 
by  his  side  would  not  tremble;  and  the  sound 
— in  the  awful  width  of  the  silence — what 
more  would  it  be  than  that  of  the  woodpecker 
alarming  the  insects  of  one  particular  tree! 

Poor  wretch  that  we  are! — to  us  the  uncom- 
panioned  silence  of  the  solitude  hath  become 
terrible.  More  dreadful  is  it  than  the  silence 
of  the  tomb;  for  there,  often  arise  responses  to 
the  unuttered  soliloquies  of  the  pensive  heart. 
But  this  is  as  the  silence,  not  of  Time,  but  of 
Eternity.  No  burial  heaps — no  mounds — no 
cairns!  It  is  not  as  if  man  had  perished  here, 
and  been  forgotten;  but  as  if  this  were  a  world 
in  which  there  had  been  neither  living  nor  d}'- 
ing.  Too  utter  is  the  solitariness  even  for  the 
ghosts  of  the  dead!  For  they  are  thought  to 
haunt  the  burial-places  of  what  once  wastheir 


bodies — the  chamber  where  the  spirit  breathed 
its  final  farewell — the  spot  of  its  transitory  love 
and  delight,  or  of  its  sin  and  sorrow — to  gaze 
with  troubled  tenderness  on  the  eyes  that  once 
they  worshipped — with  cold  ear  to  drink  the 
music  of  the  voices  long  ago  adored;  and  in 
all  their  permitted  visitations,  to  express,  if  but 
by  the  beckoning  of  the  shadow  of  a  hand, 
some  unextinguishable  longing  after  the  con- 
verse of  the  upper  world,  even  within  the  gates 
of  the  grave. 

A  change  comes  over  us.  Deep  and  still  as 
is  the  solitude,  we  are  relieved  of  our  awe,  and 
out  of  the  forest-gloom  arise  images  of  beauty 
that  come  and  go,  gliding  as  on  wings,  or  sta- 
tue-like, stand  in  the  glades,  like  the  sylvan 
deities  to  whom  of  old  belonged,  by  birthright, 
all  the  regions  of  the  woods.  On— on — on! — 
further  into  the  Forest! — and  let  the  awe  of 
imagination  be  still  further  tempered  by  the 
delight  breathed  even  from  any  one  of  the 
lovely  names  sweet-sounding  through  the  fa- 
7nous  fables  of  antiquity-  Dryad,  Hamadryad ! 
Faunus!  Sylvanus! — Now,  alas!  )'e  are  but 
names,  and  no  more!  Great  Pan  himself  is 
dead,  or  here  he  would  set  up  his  reign.  But 
what  right  has  such  a  dreamer  to  dream  of  the 
dethroned  deities  of  Greece?  The  language 
they  spoke  is  not  his  language ;  yet  the  words 
of  the  great  poets  who  sang  of  gods  and  demi- 
gods, are  beautiful  in  their  silent  meanings  as 
they  meet  his  adoring  eyes;  and,  mighty  Ly- 
rists! has  he  not  often  lloated  down  the  temple- 
crowned  and  altar-shaded  rivers  of  your  great 
Choral  Odes  ? 

On — on — on  ! — further  into  the  Forest ! — 
unless,  indeed,  thou  dreadest  that  the  limbs 
that  bear  on  thy  Heshly  tabernacle  may  fail, 
and  the  body,  left  to  itself,  sink  down  and  die. 
Ha !  such  fears  thou  laughest  to  scorn  ;  for 
from  youth  upwards  thou  hast  dallied  with  the 
wild  and  perilous:  and  what  but  the  chill  de- 
light in  which  thou  hast  so  often  shivered  in 
threatening  solitude  brought  thee  here!  These 
dens  are  not  dungeons,  nor  are  we  a  thrall. 
Yet  if  dungeons  they  must  be  called — and  they 
are  deep,  and  dark,  and  grim — ten  thousand 
gates  hath  this  great  prison-house,  and  wide 
open  are  they  all.  So  on — on — on  !— further 
into  the  Forest !  But  who  shall  ascend  to  its 
summit  ?  Eagles  and  dreams.  Round  its  base 
we  go,  rejoicing  in  the  new-found  day,  and 
once  more  cheered  and  charmed  with  the  mu- 
sic of  birds.  Say  whence  came,  ye  scientific 
world-makers,  these  vast  blocks  of  granite? 
Was  it  fire  or  water,  think  j'e,  that  hung  in  the 
air  the  semblance  of  yon  Gothic  cathedral, 
without  nave,  or  chancel,  or  aisle — a  mass  of 
solid  rock?  Yet  it  looks  like  the  abode  of 
Echoes ;  and  haply  when  there  is  thunder, 
rolls  out  its  lengthening  shadow  of  sound  to 
the  ear  of  the  solitary  shepherd  afar  off  on 
Cairngorm. 

On — on — on ! — further  into  the  Forest !  Now 
on  all  sides  leagues  of  ancient  trees  surround 
us,  and  we  are  safe  as  in  th^  grave  from  the 
persecuting  love  or  hatred  of  friends  or  foes. 
The  sun  shall  not  find  us  by  day,  nor  the  moon 
by  night.  Were  our  life  forfeiied  to  what  are 
called  the  laws,  how  could  the  laws  discover 
the  criminal?     How  could  they  drag  us  from 


i 


I 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


231 


the  impenetrable  gloom  of  this  silvan  sanctu- 
ary? And  if  here  we  chose  to  perish  by  sui- 
cide or  natural  death — and  famine  is  a  natural 
death — what  eye  would  ever  look  on  our  bonesi 
Raving  all;  but  so  it  often  is  with  us  in  sever- 
est solitude — our  dreams  will  be  hideous  with 
sin  and  death. 

Hideous,  said  we,  with  sin  and  death  ? 
Thoughts  that  came  flying  against  us  like  vul- 
tures, like  vultures  have  disappeared,  disap- 
pointed of  their  prey,  and  afraid  to  fix  their 
talons  in  a  thing  alive.  Hither — by  some  se- 
cret and  sacred  impulse  within  the  soul,  that 
often  knoweth  not  the  sovereign  virtue  of  its 
own  great  desires — have  we  been  led  as  into  a 
penitentiary,  where,  before  the  altar  of  nature, 
we  may  lay  down  the  burden  of  guilt  or  re- 
morse, and  walk  out  of  the  Forest  a  heaven- 
pardoned  man  What  guilt? — 0  my  soul! 
canst  thou  think  of  Him  who  inhabiteth  eter- 
nity, and  ask  what  guilt?  What  remorse? — 
For  the  dereliction  of  duty  every  day  since 
thou  receivedst  from  Heaven  the  understand- 
ing of  good  and  of  evil.  All  our  past  existence 
gathers  up  into  one  dread  conviction,  that 
every  man  that  is  born  of  woman  is  a  sinner, 
and  worthy  of  everlasting  death.  Yet  with  the 
same  dread  conviction  is  interfused  a  know- 
ledge, clear  as  the  consciousness  of  present 
being,  that  the  soul  will  live  for  ever.  What 
was  the  meaning,  0  my  soul!  of  all  those 
transitory  joys  and  griefs — of  all  those  fears, 
hopes,  loves,  that  so  shook,  each  in  its  own 
fleeting  season,  the  very  foundations  on  which 
thy  being  in  this  life  is  laid?  Anger,  wrath, 
hatred,  pride,  and  ambition — what  are  they  all 
but  so  many  shapes  of  sin  coeval  with  thy 
birth  ?  That  sudden  entrance  of  heaven's  light 
into  the  Forest,  was  like  the  opening  of  the 
eye  of  God!  And  our  spirit  stands  ashamed 
of  its  nakedness,  because  of  the  foulness  and 
pollution  of  sin.  But  the  awful  thoughts  that 
have  travelled  through  its  chambers  have  ven- 
tilated, swept,  and  cleansed  them — and  let  us 
break  away  from  beneath  the  weight-  of  con- 
fession. 

Conscience !  Speak  not  of  weak  and  fantas- 
tic fears — of  abject  superstitions — and  of  all 
that  wild  brood  of  dreams  that  have  for  ages 
been  laws  to  whole  nations;  though  we  might 
speak  of  them — and,  without  violation  of  the 
spirit  of  true  philosophy,  call  upon  them  to 
bear  testimony  to  the  truth.  But  think  of  the 
calm,  purified,  enlightened,  and  elevated  con- 
science of  the  highest  natures — from  which 
objectless  fear  has  been  excluded — and  which 
hears,  in  its  stillness,  the  eternal  voice  of  God. 
What  calm  celestial  joy  fills  all  the  being  of 
a  good  man.  when  conscience  tells  him  he  is 
obeying  God's  law !  What  dismal  fear  and  sud- 
den remorse  assail  him,  whenever  he  swerves 
but  one  single  step  out  of  the  right  path  that  is 
shining  before  his  feet!  It  is  not  a  mere  self- 
ish terror — it  is  not  the  dread  of  punishment 
only  that  appals  him — for.  on  the  contrary,  he 
can  calmly  look  on  the  punishment  which  he 
knows  his  guilt  has  incurred,  and  almost  de- 
sires that  it  should  be  inflicted,  that  the  in- 
censed power  may  be  appeased.  It  is  the 
consciousness  of  offence  that  is  unendurable 
— not  the  fear  of  consequent  suffering;  it  is 


the  degradation  of  sin  that  his  soul  deplores — 
it  is  the  guilt  which  he  would  expiate,  if  pos- 
sible, in  torments ;  it  is  the  united  sense  of 
wrong,  sin,  guilt,  degradation,  shame,  and  re- 
morse, that  renders  a  moment's  pang  of  the 
conscience  more  terrible  to  the  good  than 
years  of  any  other  punishment — and  it  thus  is 
the  power  of  the  human  soul  to  render  its 
w^hole  life  miserable  by  its  very  love  of  that 
virtue  which  it  has  fatally  violated.  This  is  a 
passion  which  the  soul  could  not  suffer — un- 
less it  were  immortal.  Reason,  so  powerful 
in  the  highest  minds,  w^ould  escape  from  the 
vain  delusion;  but  it  is  in  the  highest  minds 
where  reason  is  most  subjected  to  this  awful 
power — they  would  seek  reconcilement  with 
offended  Heaven  by  the  loss  of  all  the  happi- 
ness that  earth  ever  yielded — and  would  re- 
joice to  pour  out  their  heart's  blood  if  it  could 
wipe  away  from  the  conscience  the  stain  of 
one  deep  transgression  !  These  are  not  the 
high-wrought  and  delusive  states  of  mind  of 
religious  enthusiasts,  passing  avvay  with  the 
bodily  agitation  of  the  dreamer  ;  but  they  are 
the  feelings  of  the  loftiest  of  men's  sons — and 
w-hen  the  troubled  spirit  has  escaped  from  their 
burden,  or  found  strength  to  support  it,  the 
conviction  of  their  reasonableness  and  of  their 
awful  reality  remains;  nor  can  it  be  removed 
from  the  minds  of  the  wise  and  virtuous,  with- 
out the  obliteration  from  the  tablets  of  memory 
of  all  the  moral  judgments  which  conscience 
has  there  recorded. 

It  is  melancholy  to  think  that  even  in  our 
own  day,  a  philosopher,  and  one  of  high  name 
too,  should  have  spoken  slightingly  of  the  uni- 
versal desire  of  immortality,  as  no  argument 
at  all  in  proof  of  it,  because  arising  inevitably 
from  the  regret  with  which  all  men  must  re- 
gard the  relinquishment  of  this  life.  By  thus 
speaking  of  the  desire  as  a  delusion  necessa- 
rily accompanying  the  constitution  of  mind 
which  it  has  pleased  the  Deity  to  bestow  on 
us,  such  reasoners  but  darken  the  mystery 
both  of  man  and  of  Providence.  But  this  de- 
sire of  immortality  is  not  of  the  kind  they  say 
it  is,  nor  does  it  partake,  in  any  degree,  of  the 
character  of  a  blind  and  weak  feeling  of  regret 
at  merely  leaving  this  present  life.  "  I  would 
not  live  alwav,"  is  a  feeling  which  all  men 
understand — but  who  can  endure  the  momen- 
tary thought  of  annihilation  ?  Thousands,  and 
tens  of  thousands— awful  a  thing  as  it  is  to  die 
—are  willing  to  do  so— "  passing  through  na- 
ture to  eternity" — nay,  when  the  last  hour 
comes,  death  almost  always  finds  his  victim 
ready,  if  not  resigned.  To  leave  earth,  and 
all  the  light  both  of  the  sun  and  of  the  soul,  is 
a  sad  thought  to  us  all— transient  as  are  human 
smiles,  we  cannot  bear  to  see  them  no  more— 
and  there  is  a  beauty  that  binds  us  to  life  in 
the  tears  of  tenderness  that  the  dying  man  sees 
pushing  for  his  sake.  But  between  that  regret 
for  departing  loves  and  afl^ections,  and  all  the 
gorgeous  or  beautiful  shows  of  this  earth— be- 
tween that  love  and  the  dread  of  annihilation, 
there  is  no  connection.  The  soul  can  bear  to 
part  with  all  it  loves— the  soft  voice— the 
kindling  smile— the  starting  tear— and  the  pro- 
foundest  sighs  of  all  by  whom  it  is  beloved  ; 
but  it  cannot  bear  to  part  with  its  existence 


232 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


It  cannot  even  believe  the  possibility  of  that 
which  yet  it  may  darkl}-  dread.  Its  loves — its 
passions — its  joys — its  agonies  are  not  it/ttlf. 
They  may  perish,  but  it  is  imperishable.  Strip 
it  of  all  it  has  seen,  touched,  enjoyed,  or  suf- 
fered— still  it  seems  to  survive — bury  all  it 
knew,  or  could  know  in  the  grave — but  itself 
cannot  be  trodden  down  into  the  corruption. 
It  sees  nothing  like  itself  in  what  perishes,  ex- 
cept in  dim  analogies  that  vanish  before  its 
last  profound  self-meditation — and  though  it 
parts  with  its  mortal  weeds  at  last,  as  with  a 
garment,  its  life  is  felt  at  last  to  be  somethin? 
not  even  in  contrast  with  the  death  of  the  body, 
but  to  flow  on  like  a  flood,  that  we  believe  con- 
tinues still  to  flow  after  it  has  entered  into  the 
unseen  solitude  of  some  boundless  desert. 

"  Behind  ihe  cloud  of  death, 
Onrp,  T  l)eheld  ii  sun  ;  a  sun  whirh  cilt 
That  sable  cloud,  and  lurn'd  it  all  to  cold. 
How  the  erave's  altered  '.  falhondess  as  hell ! 
A  real  hell  to  those  who  dream'd  of  heaven. 
Annihilation  .'     How  it  yawns  before  nie  '. 
Next  nininent  I  n)ay  drop  from  thought,  from  sense, 
The  privileiie  ofan:;els  and  of  worms. 
An  ouicMst  'rom  exisl('nce  !  and  this  spirit. 
This  all-pervadinc.  this  all-conscious  soul, 
This  particle  of  energy  divine. 
Which  travels  nature',  flies  from  star  to  star. 
And  visits  pods,  and  eniuiates  their  powers, 
For  ever  is  ezting-uish'd." 

If  intellect  be,  indeed,  doomed  utterly  to 
perish,  why  may  not  we  ask  God,  in  that  deep 
despair  which,  in  that  case,  must  inevitably 
flow  from  the  consciousness  of  those  powers 
with  which  he  has  at  once  blessed  and  cursed 
tis — why  that  intellect,  whose  final  doom  is 
death,  and  that  final  doom  within  a  moment, 
findiT  no  thought  that  can  satisfy  it  but  that  of 
liife,  and  no  idea  in  which  its  flight  can  be 
lost  but  that  of  Eternity?  If  this  earth  were 
at  once  the  soul's  cradle  and  her  tomb,  why 
should  that  cradle  have  been  hung  amid  the 
stars,  and  that  tomb  illumined  by  their  eternal 
light  ?  If,  indeed,  a  child  of  the  clay,  was  not 
this  earth,  with  all  its  plains,  forests,  moun- 
tains, and  seas,  capacious  enough  for  the 
dreams  of  that  creature  whose  course  was 
finally  to  be  extinguished  in  the  darkness  of 
its  bosom?  What  had  we  to  do  with  planets, 
and  suns,  and  spheres,  "and  all  the  dread 
magnificence  of  heaven  ?"  Were  we  framed 
merely  that  we  might  for  a  few  years  rejoice 
in  the  beauty  of  the  stars,  as  in  that  of  the 
flowers  beneath  our  feet?  And  ought  we  to 
be  grateful  for  those  transitory  glimpses  of 
the  heavens,  as  for  the  fading  splendour  of  the 
earth  ?  But  the  heavens  are  not  an  idle  show, 
hung  out  for  the  gaze  of  that  idle-  dreamer 
Man.  They  are  the  work  of  the  Eternal  God, 
and  he  has  given  us  power  therein  to  read 
and  to  understand  his  glory.  It  is  not  our 
eyes  only  that  are  dazzled  by  ifie  face  of  hea- 
ven— our  souls  can  comprehend  the  laws  by 
which  that  face  is  overspread  by  its  celestial 
smiles.  The  dwelling-place  of  our  spirits  is 
already  in  the  heavens.  Well  are  we  entitled 
to  give  names  unto  the  stars;  for  we  know 
the  moment  of  their  rising  and  their  setting, 
and  can  be  with  them  at  every  part  of  their 
shining  journey  through  the  boundless  ether. 
While  generations  of  men  have  lived,  died, 
and  are  buried,  the  astronomer  thinks  of  the 
golden  orb  that  shone  centuries  ago  within  the 


vision  of  man,  and  lifts  up  his  eye  undoubting 
at  the  very  moment  when  it  again  comes  glo- 
rious on  its  predicted  return.  Were  the  Eter- 
nal Being  to  slacken  the  course  of  a  planet,  or 
increase  even  the  distance  of  the  fixed  stars, 
the  decree  would  be  soon  known  on  earth. 
Our  ignorance  is  great,  because  so  is  our 
knowledge ;  for  it  is  from  the  mightiness  and 
vastness  of  what  we  do  know  that  we  imagine 
the  illimitable  unknown  creation.  And  to 
whom  has  God  made  these  revelations  ?  To 
a  worm  that  next  moment  is  to  be  in  dark- 
ness ?  To  a  piece  of  earth  momentarily  raised 
into  breathing  existence  1  To  a  soul  perish- 
able as  the  telescope  through  which  it  looks 
into  the  gates  of  heaven  1 

"Oh!  star-eyed  science,  hast  thou  wander'd  there 
To  watt  us  home— the  message  of  despair  ?" 

No;  there  is  no  despair  in  the  gracious  light 
of  heaven.  As  we  travel  through  those  orbs, 
we  feel  indeed  that  we  have  no  power,  but  we 
feel  that  we  have  mighty  knowledge.  We  can 
create  nothing,  but  we  can  dimly  understand 
all.  It  belongs  to  God  only  to  ncutt,  but  it  is 
given  to  man  to  knotv — and  that  knowledge  is 
itself  an  assurance  of  immortality. 

"Uenoiince  .St.  Evremont,  .md  read  St.  Paul. 
Kre  rapt  l)y  miracle,  by  reason  wing'd. 
Ids  mounting  mind  made  long  abode  in  heaven. 
This  is  freethinking,  uncontined  to  parts, 
To  send  the  soul,  on  curious  travel  bent, 
Throuch  all  the  provinces  of  human  thought: 
To  dan  her  flight  through  the  whole  sphere  of  man; 
Of  this  vast  universe  to  make  the  tour; 
In  each  recess  of  space  and  lime,  at  home  ; 
Familiar  with  their  wonders  :  diving  deep; 
And  like  a  prince  of  boundless  interests  there. 
Still  most  ambitious  of  the  most  remote; 
To  look  on  truth  unbroken,  and  entire  ; 
Truth  in  the  system,  the  full  orb  ;  where  truths; 
By  truths  enlichlen'd  and  suslain'd,  alTord  ' 

An  archlike,  strong  foundation,  to  support 
Til'  incumbent  weieht  of  absolute,  complete 
f'onviction  :  here,  Ihe  more  we  press,  we  stand 
Mr>re  firm  ;  who  most  examine,  most  believe. 
Parts,  like  half-sentences,  confound  :  the  whole 
T'onveys  the  sense,  and  God  is  understood. 
Who  not  in  fragments  writes  to  human  race. 
Read  his  whole  volume,  skeptic !  then  reply." 

Renounce  St.  Evreinont!  Ay,  and  many  a 
Dei.>-tical  writer  of  higher  repute  now  in  the 
world.  But  how  came  they  by  the  truths  they 
did  know  ?  Not  bj'  the  work  of  their  (twn  un- 
assisted faculties — for  they  lived  in  a  Christian 
country;  they  had  already  been  imbued  with 
many  high  and  holy  beliefs,  of  which — had 
they  willed  it — they  could  never  have  got  rid; 
and  to  the  very  last  the  light  which  they,  in 
their  pride,  believed  to  have  emanated  from  the 
inner  shrine — the  penetralia  of  Philosophy — 
came  from  the  temples  of  the  living  God. 
They  walked  all  their  lives  long — though  they 
knew  it  not,  or  strived  to  forget  it — in  the  light 
of  revelation,  which,  though  often  darkened  to 
men's  eyes  by  clouds  from  earth,  was  still 
shining  strong  in  heaven.  Had  the  New  Tes- 
tament never  been — think  ye  that  men  in  their 
pride,  though 

"Poor  sons  of  a  day," 
could  have  discerned  the  necessity  of  framing 
fi)r  themselves  a  r(7igio»i  of  huimhty?  No.  .\s 
by  pride,  we  are  told  the  angels  fell — so  by 
pride  man,  after  his  miserable  fall,  strove  to 
lift  up  his  helpless  being  from  the  dust;  and 
though  trailing  himself,  soul  and  body,  along 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  AVIARY. 


233 


the  soiling  earth,  and  glorying  in  his  own  cor- 
ruption, sought  to  eternize  here  his  very  sins 
by  naming  the  stars  of  heaven  after  heroes, 
conquerors,  murderers,  violators  of  the  man- 
dates of  the  Maker  whom  they  had  forgotten, 
or  Avhose  attributes  they  had  debased  by  their 
own  foul  imaginations.  They  believed  them- 
selves, in  the  delusion  of  their  own  idolatries, 
to  be  "  Lords  of  the  world  and  Demigods  of 
Fame,"  while  they  were  the  slaves  of  their 
own  sins  and  their  own  sinful  Deities.  Should 
we  have  been  wiser  in  our  generation  than 
they,  but  for  the  Bible?  If  in  moral  specula- 
tion we  hear  but  little — too  little — of  the  con- 
fession of  what  it  owes  to  the  Christian  reli- 
gion— in  all  the  Philosophy,  nevertheless,  that 
is  pure  and  of  good  report,  we  sec  that  "the 
day-spring  from  on  high  has  visited  it."  In 
all  philosophic  inquiry  there  is,  perhaps,  a  ten- 
dency to  the  soul's  exaltation  of  itself — which 
the  spirit  and  genius  of  Christianity  subdues. 
It  is  not  sufficient  to  say  that  a  natural  sense 
of  our  own  infirmities  will  do  so — for  seldom 
indeed  have  Deists  been  lowly-minded.  They 
have  talked  proudly  of  humility.  Compare 
their  moral  meditations  with  those  of  our  great 
divines.  Their  thoughts  and  feelings  are  of 
the  "  earth  earthy ;"  but  when  we  listen  to  those 
others,  we  feel  that  their  lore  has  been  God- 
given. 

"It  is  as  if  an  angel  shook  his  wings." 

Thus  has  Christianity  glorified  Philosophy; 
its  celestial  purity  is  now  the  air  in  which  in- 
tellect breathes.  In  the  liberty  and  equality 
of  that  religion,  the  soul  of  the  highest  Philo- 
sopher dare  not  offend  that  of  the  humblest 
peasant.  Nay,  it  sometimes  stands  rebuked 
before  it — and  the  lowly  dweller  in  the  hut,  or 
the  shieling  on  the  mountain  side,  or  in  the 
forest,  could  abash  the  proudest  son  of  Science, 
by  pointing  to  the  Sermon  of  our  Saviour  on 
the  Mount — and  saying,  "  I  see  my  duties  to 
man  and  God  here!"  The  religious  establish- 
ments of  Christianity,  therefore,  have  done 
more  not  only  to  support  the  life  of  virtue,  but 
to  show  all  its  springs  and  sources,  than  all 
the  works  of  all  the  Philosophers  who  have 
ever  expounded  its  principles  or  its  practice. 

Ha!  what  has  brought  thee  hither,  thou 
wide-anllered  king  of  the  red-deer  of  Braemar, 
from  the  spacious  desert  of  thy  hills  of  storm  1 
Ere  now  we  have  beheld  thee,  or  one  stately 
as  thee,  gazing  abroad,  from  a  rock  over  the 
heather,  to  all  the  points  of  heaven ;  and  soon 
as  our  figure  was  seen  far  below,  leading  the 
van  of  the  flight  thou  went'st  haughtily  away 
into  the  wilderness.  But  now  thou  glidest 
softly  and  slowly  through  the  gloom — no  watch- 
fulness, no  anxiety  in  th)^  large  beam.ing  eyes  ; 
and,  kneeling  among  the  hoary  mosses,  layest 
thyself  down  in  unknown  fellowship  with  one 
of  those  human  creatures,  a  glance  of  whose 
eye,  a  murmur  of  whose  voice,  would  send 
thee  belling  through  the  forest,  terrified  by  the 
flash  or  sound  that  bespoke  a  hostile  nature 
•wont  to  pursue  thy  race  unto  death. — The 
hunter  is  upon  thee — away — away  !  Sudden 
as  a  shooting-star  up  springs  the  red-deer,  and 
in  the  gloom  as  suddenly  is  lost. 

On — on — on  I  further  into  the  Forest ! — and 
30 


now  a  noise  as  of  "  thunder  heard  remote." 
Waterfalls — hundreds  of  waterfalls  sounding 
for  ever — here — there — everywhere — among 
the  remoter  woods.  Northwards  one  fierce 
torrent  dashes  through  the  centre — but  no  vil- 
lages— only  a  few  woodmen's  shielings  will 
appear  on  its  banks  ;  for  it  is  a  torrent  of  pre- 
cipices, where  the  shrubs  that  hang  midway 
from  the  cleft  are  out  of  the  reach  of  the  spray 
of  its  cataracts,  even  when  the  red  Garroch  is 
in  flood. 

Many  hours  have  we  been  in  the  wilderness, 
and  our  heart  yearns  again  for  the  cheerful 
dwellings  of  men.  Sweet  infant  streamlet, 
that  flows  by  our  feet  without  a  murmur,  so 
shallow  are  yet  thy  waters — wilt  thou — short 
as  hitherto  has  been  thy  journeying — wilt  thou 
be  our  guide  out  into  the  green  valleys  and 
the  blue  heaven,  and  the  sight  once  more  of 
the  bright  sunshine  and  the  fair  fleecy  clouds'? 
No  other  clue  to  the  labyrinth  do  we  seek  but 
that  small,  thin,  pure,  transparent  thread  of 
silver,  which  neither  bush  nor  brier  will  break, 
and  which  will  wind  without  entanglement 
round  the  roots  of  the  old  trees,  and  the  bases 
of  the  shaggy  rocks.  As  if  glad  to  escape 
from  its  savage  birthplace,  the  small  rivulet 
now  gives  utterance  to  a  song;  and  sliding 
down  shelving  rocks,  so  low  in  their  mossy 
verdure  as  hardly  to  deserve  that  name,  glides 
along  the  almost  level  lawns,  here  and  there 
disclosing  a  little  hermit  flower.  No  danger 
now  of  its  being  imbibed  wholly  by  the  thirsty 
earth ;  for  it  has  a  channel  and  banks  of  its 
own — and  there  is  a  waterfall !  Thence- 
forwards  the  rivulet  never  loses  its  merry 
voice — and  in  ^n  hour  it  is  a  torrent.  What 
beautiful  symptoms  now  of  its  approach  to  the 
edge  of  the  Forest!  Wandering  lights  and 
whispering  airs  are  here  visitants — and  there 
the  blue  eye  of  a  wild  violet  looking  up  from 
the  ground  !  The  glades  are  more  frequent — 
more  frequent  open  spaces  cleared  by  the 
woodman's  axe — and  the  antique  Oak-Tree  all 
alone  by  itself,  itself  a  grove.  The  torrent 
may  be  called  noble  now;  and  that  deep  blue 
atmosphere — or  say  rather,  that  glimmer  of 
purple  air — lies  over  the  Strath  in  which  a 
great  River  rolls  along  to  the  Sea. 

Nothing  in  all  nature  more  beautiful  than 
the  boundary  of  a  great  Highland  Forest. 
Masses  of  rocks  thrown  together  in  magnifi- 
cent confusion,  many  of  them  lichened  and 
weather-stained  with  colours  gorgeous  as  tlx; 
eyed  plumage  of  the  peacock,  the  lustre  of  the 
rainbow,  or  the  barred  and  clouded  glories  of 
setting  suns — some  towering  aloft  with  trees 
sown  in  the  crevices  by  bird  or  breeze,  and 
checkering  the  blue  sky — others  bare,  black, 
abrupt,  grim  as  volcanoes,  and  shattered  as  if 
by  the  lightning-stroke.  Yet  interspersed, 
places  of  perfect  peace — circles  among  the  tall 
heather,  or  taller  lady-fern,  smoothed  into  vel- 
vet, it  is  there  easy  to  believe,  by  Fairies'  fee^ 
— rocks  where  the  undisturbed  linnet  hangs 
her  nest  among  the  blooming  briars,  all  float- 
ing with  dew  draperies  of  honeysuckle  alive 
with  bees — glades  green  as  emerald,  where  lie 
the  lambs  in  tempered  sunshine,  or  haply  a 
lovely  doe  reposes  with  her  fawn ;  and  further 
1  down,  where  the  fields  half  belong  to  the  mouu- 


234 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


tain  and  half  to  the  strath,  the  smoke  of  hi  Jdep 
huts — a  log-bridge  flung  across  the  torrent — a 
hanging  garden,  and  a  little  broomy  knoll,  with 
a  few  laughing  children  at  play,  almost  as  wild- 
looking  as  the  wanderers  of  the  woods  ! 

Turn  your  eyes,  if  you  can,  from  that  lovely 
"wilderness,  and  behold  down  along  a  mile- 
broad  Strath,  fed  by  a  thousand  torrents,  flow- 
eth  the  noblest  of  Scotia's  rivers,  the  strong- 
sweeping  Spey!  Let  Imagination  launch  her 
canoe,  and  be  thou  a  solitary  steersman^for 
need  is  none  of  oar  or  sail ;  keep  the  middle 
course  while  all  the  groves  go  by,  and 
ere  the  sun  has  sunk  behind  yon  golden 
mountains — nay,  mountains  they  are  not,  but 
a  transitory  pomp  of  clouds — thou  mayest 
list  the  roaring,  an.d  behold  the  foaming  of 
the  Sea. 


Was  there  ever  such  a-descriptive  dream  of 
a  coloured  engraving  of  the  Cushat,  Quest,  «r 
Ring-Dove,  dreamt  before  ?  Poor  worn-out 
and  glimmering  candle! — whose  wick  of  light 
and  life  in  a  few  more  flickerings  will  be  no 
more — what  a  contrast  dost  thou  present  with 
thyself  of  eight  hours  ago!  Then,  truly,  wert 
thou  a  shining  light,  and  high  aloft  in  the  room- 
gloaming  burned  thy  clear  crest  like  a  star — 
during  its  midnight  silence,  a  inemento  moii  of 
which  our  spirit  was  not  afraid.  Now  thou  art 
dying — dying — dead!  Our  cell  is  in  darkness. 
But  methinks  we  see  another — a  purer — a 
clearer  light — one  more  directly  from  Heaven. 
We  touch  but  a  spring  in  a  wooden  shutter — 
and  lo!  the  full  blaze  of  day.  Oh  !  why  should 
we  mortal  beings  dread  that  night-prison — the 
Grave  1 


DR.  KITCHINER. 


FIRST  COURSE. 

It  greatly  grieved  us  to  think  that  Dr.  Kitch- 
iner  should  have  died  before  our  numerous 
avocations  had  allowed  us  an  opportunity  of 
dining  with  him,  and  subjecting  to  the  test-acn 
of  our  experienced  palate  his  claims  to  immor- 
tality as  a  Cook  and  a  Christian.  The  Doctor 
had,  we  know,  a  dread  of  Us — not  altogether 
unallayed  by  delight;  and  on  the  dinner  to  Us. 
■which  he  had  meditated  for  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  ho  knew  and  felt  must  have  hung 
his  reputation  with  posterity — his  posthuniDUs 
fame.  We  understand  that  there  is  an  unfin- 
ished sketch  of  that  Dinner  among  the  Doctor's 
?apers,  and  that  the  design  is  magnificent, 
et,  perhaps,  it  is  better  for  his  glory  that 
Kitchiner  should  have  died  wiihoiit  r.itempting 
to  imbody  in  forms  the  Idea  of  that  Dinner.  It 
migrit  have  been  a  failure.  How  liable  to  im- 
perfection the  mot erii I  on  which  he  would  have 
had  to  work  !  How  defective  the  instruments  ! 
Yes — yes  ! — happier  far  was  it  for  the  good  old 
man  that  he  should  have  fallen  asleep  with  the 
(indimmed  idea  of  that  unattempled  Dinner  in 
his  imagination,  than,  vainly  contending  with 
the  physical  evil  inherent  in  matter,  have  de- 
tected the  Bishop's  foot  in  the  first  course,  and 
died  of  a  broken  heart ! 

"Travelling,"  it  is  remarked  by  our  poor 
dear  dead  Doctor  in  his  Traveller's  Oracle,  "  is 
a  recreation  to  be  recommended,  especially  to 
those  whose  employments  aw?  sedentar}- — who 
are  engaged  in  abstract  studies — whose  minds 
have  been  sunk  in  a  state  of  morbid  melan- 
choly by  hypochondriasis,  or,  by  what  is  worst 
of  all,  a  lack  of  domestic  felicity.  Nature, 
however,  will  not  suffer  any  sudden  transition  ; 
"and  therefore  it  is  improper  for  people  accus- 
tomed to  a  sedentary  life  to  undertake  sudden- 
ly a  journey,  during  which  they  will  be  ex- 
■  posed  to   long  and  violent  jolting.    The  case 


here  is  the  same  as  if  one  accustomed  to  drink 
water,  should,  all  at  once,  begin  to  drink  wine." 

Had  the  Doctor  been  alive,  we  should  have 
asked  him  what  he  meant  by  "long  and  vio- 
lent jolting  V  Jolting  is  now  absolutely  un- 
known in  England,  and  it  is  of  England  the 
Doctor  speaks.  No  doubt,  some  occasional 
jolting  might  still  be  discovered  among  the 
lanes  and  cross-roads ;  but,  though  violent, 
it  could  not  be  long:  and  we  defj-  the  most  se- 
dentary gentleman  living  to  be  more  so,  when 
sitting  in  an  easy  chair  by  his  parlour  fireside, 
than  in  a  cushioned  carriage  spinning  along 
the  turnpike.  But  for  the  trees  and  hedge- 
rows all  galloping  by,  he  would  never  know 
that  he  was  himself  in  motion.  The  truth  is, 
that  no  gentleman  can  be  said,  now-a-days,  to 
lead  a  sedentary  life,  who  is  not  constantly 
travelling  before  the  iiisensible  touch  of 
M'Adam.  Look  at  the  first  twenty  people  that 
come  towering  by  on  the  ntofof  a  Highflier  or 
a  Defiance.  What  can  be  more  sedentary! 
Only  look  at  that  elderly  gentleman  with  the 
wig.  evidently  a  parson,  jammed  in  between  a 
brace  of  buxom  virgins  on  their  way  down  to 
Doncaster  races.  Could  he  be  more  sedentary, 
during  the  psalm,  in  his  own  pulpit? 

We  must  object,  too,  to  the  illustration  of 
wine  and  water.  Let  no  man  who  has  been  so 
unfortunate  as  to  be  accustomed  to  drink 
water,  be  afraid  all  at  once  to  begin  to  drink 
wine.  Let  him,  without  fear  or  trembling, 
boldly  fill  bumpers  to  the  Throne — the  Navy — 
and  the  Army.  These  three  bumpers  will 
have  made  him  a  new  man.  We  have  no  ob- 
jection whatever  to  his  drinking,  in  animated 
succession,  the  Apotheosis  of  the  Whigs — the 
Angler's  delight — the  Cause  of  Liberty  all  over 
the  World — (!'hristopher  North — Maga  the  Im- 
mortal. "Nature  will  not  suffer  any  sudden 
transition!"  Will  she  noti  Look  at  our 
water  drinker  now !     His  very  own   mother 


DR.  KITCHINER. 


235 


could  not  know  him — he  has  lost  all  resem- 
blance to  his  twin-brother,  from  whom,  two 
short  hours  ago,  you  could  not  have  distin- 
guished him  but  for  a  slight  scar  on  his  brow 
— so  completely  is  his  apparent  personal  iden- 
tity lost,  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  him 
to  establish  an  alibi.  He  sees  a  figure  in  the 
mirror  above  the  chimney-piece,  but  has  not 
the  slightest  suspicion  that  the  rosy-faced  Bac- 
chanal is  himself,  the  water-drinker ;  but  then 
he  takes  care  to  imitate  the  manual  exercise 
of  the  phantom — lifting  his  glass  to  his  lips  at 
the  very  same  moment,  as  if  they  wei;e  both 
moved  by  one  soul. 

The  Doctor  then  wisely  remarks,  that  it  is 
"  impossible  to  lay  down  any  rule  by  which  to 
regulate  the  number  of  miles  a  man  may  jour- 
ney in  a  day,  or  to  prescribe  the  precise  num- 
ber of  ounces  he  ought  to  eat;  but  that  nature 
has  given  us  a  very  excellent  guide  in  a  sense 
of  lassitude,  which  is  as  unerring  in  exercise 
as  the  sense  of  satiety  is  in  eating." 

We  say  the  Doctor  wisely  remarks,  yet  not 
altogether  wisely;  for  the  rule  does  not  seem 
to  hold  always  good  either  in  exercise  or  in 
eating.  What  more  common  than  to  feel  one's- 
self  very  much  fatigued — quite  done  up  as  it 
wei'c,  and  unwilling  to  stir  hand  or  foot.  Up 
goes  a  lark  in  heaven — tira-lira — or  suddenly 
the  breezes  blow  among  the  clouds,  who  forth- 
with all  begin  campaigning  in  the  sky — or, 
quick  as  lightning,  the  sunshine  in  a  moment 
resuscitates  a  drowned  day — or  tripping  along, 
all  by  her  happy  self,  to  the  sweet  accompani- 
ment of  her  joy-varied  songs,  the  woodman's 
daughter  passes  by  on  her  way,  with  a  basket 
in  her  hand,  to  her  father  in  the  forest,  who 
has  already  laid  down  his  axe  on  the  meridian 
shadow  darkening  one  side  of  the  straight  stem 
of  an  oak,  beneath  whose  grove  might  be  drawn 
up  five  score  of  plumed  chivalry  !  Where  is 
your  "sense  of  lassitude  now,  nature's  un- 
erring guide  in  exercise  1"  You  spring  up 
from  the  mossy  wayside  bank,  and  renewed 
both  in  mind  and  body,  "  rejoicing  in  Nature's 
joy,"  you  continue  to  pass  over  houseless 
moors,  by  small,  single,  solitary,  straw-roofed 
huts,  through  villages  gathered  round  Stone 
Cross,  Elm  Grove,  or  old  Monastic  Tower,  till, 
unwearied  in  lith  and  limb,  you  see  sunset 
beautifying  all  the  west,  and  drop  in,  perhaps, 
among  the  hush  of  the  Cottar's  Saturday  Night 
— for  it  is  in  sweet  Scotland  we  are  walking  in 
our  dream — and  know  not,  till  we  have  stretched 
ourselves  on  a  bed  of  rushes  or  of  heather, 
that  "  kind  Nature's  sweet  restorer,  balmy 
sleep,"  is  yet  among  the  number  of  our  bosom 
friends — alas  !  daily  diminishing  beneath  fate 
fortune,  ihe  sweeping  scythe-stroke  of  death, 
or  the  Avhisper  of  some  one  poor,  puny,  idle, 
and  unmeaning  word ! 

Then,  as  to  "  the  sense  of  satiety  in  eating." 
It  is  produced  in  us  by  three  platefuls  of  hotch- 
potch— and,  to  the  eyes  of  an  ordinary  ob- 
server, our  dinner  would  seem  to  be  at  an  end. 
But  no — strictly  speaking,  it  is  just  going  to 
begin.    About  an  hour  ago  did  we,  standing  on  | 
the  very  beautiful  bridge  of  Perth,  see  that ; 
identical  salmon,  with  his  back-fin  just  visible  j 
above  the  translucent  tide,  arrowing  up  the  ] 
Tay,  bold  as  a  bridegroom,  and  nothing  doubt- , 


ing  that  he  should  spend  his  honeymoon  among 
the  gravel  beds  of  Kinnaird  or  Moulenearn,  or 
the  rocky  sofas  of  the  Tummel,  or  the  green 
marble  couches  of  the  Tilt.  What  has  be- 
come now  of  "  the  sense  of  satiety  in  eating  1" 
John — the  castors  ! — mustard — vinegar — cay- 
enne— catchup — peas  and  potatoes,  with  a  very 
little  butter — the  biscuit  called  "  rusk" — and 
the  memory  of  the  hotch-potch  is  as  that  of 
Babylon  the  Great.  That  any  gigot  of  mutton, 
exquisite  though  much  of  the  five-year-old 
blackfaced  must  assuredly  be,  can,  with  any 
rational  hopes  of  success,  contend  against  a 
haunch  of  venison,  will  be  asserted  by  no  de- 
vout lover  of  truth.  Try  the  two  by  alternate 
platefuls,  and  you  will  uniformly  find  that  you 
leave  off  after  the  venison.  That  "  sense  of 
satiety  in  eating,"  of  which  Dr.  Kitchiner 
speaks,  was  produced  by  the  Tay  salmon  de- 
voured above — but  of  all  the  transitory  feel- 
ings of  us  transitory  creatures  on  our  transit 
through  this  transitory  world,  in  which  the 
Doctor  asserts  nature  will  not  suffer  any  sud- 
den transitions,  the  most  transitory  ever  expe- 
rienced by  us  is  "  the  sense  of  satiety  in  eat- 
ing." Therefore,  we  have  now  seen  it  for  a 
moment  existing  on  the  disappearance  of  the 
hotch-potch — dying  on  the  appearance  of  the 
Tay  salmon — once  more  noticeable  as  the  last 
plate  of  the  noble  fish  melted  away — extin- 
guished suddenly  by  the  vision  of  the  venison 
— again  felt  for  an  instant,  and  but  for  an  in- 
stant— for  a  brace  and  a  half  of  as  fine  grouse 
as  ever  expanded  their  voluptuous  bosoms  to 
be  devoured  by  hungry  love  !  Sense  of  satiety 
in  eating,  indeed !  If  you  please,  my  dear 
friend,  one  of  the  backs — pungent  with  the 
most  palate-piercing,  stomach-stirring,  heart- 
warming, soul-exalting  of  all  tastes — the  wild 
bitter-sweet. 

But  the  Doctor  returns  to  the  subject  of 
travelling — and  fatigue.  "  When  one  begins," 
he  says,  "  to  be  low-spirited  and  dejected,  to 
yawn  often  and  be  drowsy,  when  the  appetite 
is  impaired,  when  the  smallest  movement  oc- 
casions a  fluttering  of  the  pulse,  when  the 
mouth  becomes  dry,  and  is  sensible  of  a  bitter 
taste,  seek  refreshnent  and  repose,  if  you  wish  to 
puEVEXT  ILLNESS,  already  beginning  to  take 
place."  Why,  our  dear  Doctor,  illness  in  such 
a  deplorable  case  as  this,  is  just  about  to  end, 
and  death  is  beginning  to  take  place.  Thank 
Heaven,  it  is  a  condition  to  which  we  do  not 
remember  having  very  nearJy  approximated! 
Who  ever  saw  us  yawn  1  or  drowsy  1  cr  with 
our  appetite  impaired,  except  on  the  withdrawal 
of  the  table-cloth  1  or  low-spirited,  but  whien 
the  Glenlivet  was  at  ebb  1  Who  dare  declare 
that  he  ever  saw  our  mouth  dry"!  or  sensible 
of  a  bitter  taste,  since  we  gave  over  munch- 
ing rowans  ]  Put  your  finger  on  our  wrist,  at 
any  moment  you  choose,  from  June  to  Janu- 
ary, from  January  to  June,  and  by  its  pulsation 
you  may  rectify  Harrison's  or  Kendal's  chro- 
nometer. 

But  the  Doctor  proceeds — "  By  raising  the 
temperature  of  my  room  to  about  65°,  a  broth 
diet,  and  taking  a  tea-spoonful  of  Epsom  salts 
in  half  a  pint  of  warm  water,  and  repeating  it 
every  half  hour  till  it  moves  the  bowels  twice 
or  thrice,  and  retiring  to  rest  an  nour  or  two 


236 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  A'ORTH. 


sooner  than  usual,  I  have  often  very  speedily 
got  rid  of  colds,  &c." 

Why,  there  may  be  no  great  harm  iu  acting 
as  above ;  although  we  should  far  rather  re- 
commend a  screed  of  the  Epsoms.  A  lea- 
spoonful  of  Epsom  salts  in  half  a  pint  of  warm 
water,  reminds  one,  somehow  or  other,  of  Tims. 
A  small  matter  works  a  Cockney.  It  is  not  so 
easy — and  that  the  Cockneys  well  know — to 
move  the  bowels  of  old  Christopher  North. 
We  do  not  believe  that  a  tea-spoonful  of  any 
thing  in  this  world  would  have  any  serious 
effect  on  old  "  Ironsides."  We  should  have  no  ' 
hesitation  in  backing  him  against  so  much 
corrosive  sublimate.  He  would  dine  out  on 
the  day  he  had  bolted  that  quaniitj'  of  arsenic; 
— and  would,  we  verily  believe,  rise  triumphant 
from  a  tea-spoonful  of  Prussic  acid. 

We  could  mention  a  thousand  cures  for 
"colds,  et  cetera,"  more  efficacious  than  a 
broth  diet,  a  warm  room,  a  tea-spoonful  of 
Epsom  salts,  or  early  roosting.  What  say 
you,  our  dear  Dean,  to  half  a  dozen  tumblers 
of  hot  toddy?  Your  share  of  a  brown  jug  to 
the  same  amount  1  Or  an  equal  quantity,  in 
its  gradual  decrease  revealing  deeper  and 
deeper  still  the  romantic  Welsh  scenery  of 
the  Devil's  Punch-Bowl  ?  .M/c  M  small- 
bearded  oysters,  all  redolent  of  the  salt-sea 
foam,  and  worthy,  as  they  stud  the  Ambrosial 
brodd,  to  be  licked  off  all  at  once  by  the  lam- 
bent tongue  of  Neptune.  That  antiquated 
calumny  against  the  character  of  toasted 
cheese — ihat,  forsooth,  it  is  indigestible — has 
been  trampled  under  the  march  of  mind;  and, 
therefore,  you  may  tuck  in  a  pound  of  double 
Gloucester.  Other  patients,  labouring  under 
catarrh,  may,  very  possibly,  prefer  the  roasted 
how-towdy — or  the  green  goose  from  his  first 
stubble-field — or  why  not,  by  way  of  a  little 
variety,  a  roasted  mawkin,  midway  between 
hare  and  leveret,  tempting  as  maiden  between 
woman  and  girl,  or,  as  the  Eastern  poet  says, 
between  a  frock  and  a  gown  ?  Go  to  bed — no 
need  of  warming  pans — about  a  quarter  before 
one; — you  will  not  hear  that  small  hour  strike 
— yon  will  sleep  sound  till  sunrise,  sound  as 
tl»  Black  Stone  at  Scone,  on  which  the  Kings 
of  Scotland  were  crowned  (if  old.  And  if  vou 
contrive  to  carry  a  cold  about  you  next  day, 
you  deserve  to  be  sent  to  Coventry  by  all  sen- 
sible people — and  may,  if  you  choose,  begin 
taking,  with  Tims,  a  lea-spoonful  of  Epsom 
salts  in  a  half-pint  of  warm  water  every  half 
hour,  till  it  moves  your  bowels  twice  or  thrice ; 
but  if  you  do,  be  your  sex.  politics,  or  religion 
what  they  may,  never  shall  ye  be  suffered  to 
contribute  even  a  bit  of  Balaam  to  the  Maga- 
zine. 

The  Doctor  then  treats  of  the  best  Season  for 
travelling,  and  very  judiciously  observes  that 
it  is  during  these  months  when  there  is  no  oc- 
"asion  for  a  fire — that  is,  just  before  and  after 
•he  extreme  heat.  In  winter.  Dr.  Kitchiner, 
wno  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  powers  of 
observation,  observed,  "  that  the  ways  are 
generally  bad,  and  often  dangerous,  especially 
in  hilly  countries,  b)'^  reason  of  the  snow  and 
ice.  The  days  are  short — a  traveller  comes 
late  to  his  lodging,  and  is  often  forced  to  rise 
befoie  'he  sun  in  the  morning — besides,  the 


country  looks  dismal — nature  is,  as  it  were, 
half  dead.  The  summer  corrects  all  these  in- 
conveniences." Paradoxical  as  this  doctrine 
may  at  first  sight  appear — yet  we  have  verified 
it  by  experience — having  for  many  years  found, 
without  meeting  with  one  single  exception,  that 
the  fine,  long,  warm  days  of  summer  are  an 
agreeable  and  infallible  corrective  of  the  in- 
conveniences attending  the  foul,  short,  cold 
days  of  winter — a  season-  which  is  surly  with- 
out being  sincere,  blustering  rather  than  bold — 
an  intolerable  bore — always  pretending  to  be 
taking  his  leave,  yet  domiciliating  himself  in 
another  man's  house  for  weeks  together — and, 
to  be  plain,  a  season  so  regardless  of  truth, 
that  nobody  believes  him  till  frost  has  hung  an 
ice-padlock  on  his  mouth,  and  his  many-river'd 
voice  is  dumb  under  the  wreathed  snows. 

"Cleanliness  when  travelling,"  observes  the 
Doctor,  "is  doubly  necessary ;  to  sponge  the 
body  every  morning  with  tepid  water,  and  then 
rub  it  dry  with  a  rough  towel,  will  greatly  con- 
tribute to  preserve  health.  To  put  the  feet 
into  warm  water  for  a  couple  of  minutes  just 
befoie  going  to  bed,  is  very  refreshing,  and 
inviting  to  sleep;  for  promoting  tranquillity, 
both  mental  and  corporeal,  a  clean  skin  may 
be  regarded  as  next  in  efficacy  to  a  clear  con- 
science." 

Far  be  it  from  us  to  seek  to  impugn  such 
doctrine.  A  dirty  dog  is  a,  nuisance  not  to  be 
borne.  But  here  the  question  arises — who — 
what — is  a  dirty  dogl  Now  there  are  men 
(no  women)  naturally  —  necessarily  —  dirty. 
They  are  not  dirty  by  chance^-or  accident — 
say  twice  or  thrice  per  diem  ;  but  they  are  al- 
ways dirty — at  all  times  and  in  all  places — and 
never  and  nowhere  more  disgustingly  so  than 
Vhen  figged  out  for  going  to  church.  It  is  in 
the  skin,  in  the  blood — in  the  flesh,  and  in  the 
bone — that  with  such  the  disease  of  dirt  more 
especially  lies.  We  beg  pardon,  no  less  in  the 
hair.  Now,  such  persons  do  not  know  that 
they  are  dirty — that  they  are  unclean  beasts. 
On  the  contrary,  they  often  think  themselves 
pinks  of  purity — incarnations  of  carnations—* 
impersonations  of  moss-roses — the  spiritual 
essences  of  lilies,  "imparadised  in  form  of 
that  sweet  flesh."  Now,  were  such  persons 
to  change  their  linen  every  half  hour,  night 
and  day,  that  is,  were  they  to  put  on  forty- 
eight  clean  shirts  in  the  twent)--four  hours — 
and  it  might  not  be  reasonable,  perhaps,  to 
demand  more  of  them  under  a  government 
somewhat  too  whiggish — yet  though  we  cheer- 
fully grant  that  one  and  all  of  the  shirts  would 
be  dirty,  we  as  sulkily  deny  that  at  any  given 
moment  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  and  over 
again,  the  wearer  would  be  clean.  He  would 
be  just  every  whit  and  bit  as  dirly  as  if  he  had 
known  but  one  single  shirt  all  his  life — and 
firmly  believed  his  to  be  the  only  shirt  in  the 
universe. 

Men  again,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are — and 
thank  God,  in  great  numbers — who  are  natur- 
ally so  clean,  that  we  defy  you  to  make  them 
bona  fide  dirty.  You  may  as  well  drive  down 
a  duck  into  a  dirty  puddle,  and  expect  lasting 
stains  on  its  pretty  plumage.  Pope  says  the 
same  thing  of  swans — that  is.  Poets — when 
speaking  of  \aron  Hill  diving  into  the  ditch— 


DR.  KITCHINER. 


237 


"He  bears  no  tokens  of  the  sabler  sti  earns, 
But  soars  far  off  among  the  swans  of  Thames." 

Pleasant  people  of  this  kind  of  constitution 
you  see  going  about  of  a  morning  rather  in 
dishabille — hair  uncombed  haply — face  and 
hands  even  unwashed — and  shirt  with  a  some- 
what day-before-yesterdayish  hue.  Yet  are 
they,  so  far  from  being  dirt_v,  at  once  felt,  seen, 
and  smelt,  to  be  among  the  very  cleanest  of  her 
.Majesty's  subjects.  The  moment  you  shake 
hands  with  them,  you  feel  in  the  firm  flesh  of 
palm  and  finger  that  their  heart's-blood  circu- 
lates purely  and  freely  from  the  point  of  the 
highest  hair  on  the  apex  of  the  pericranium,  to 
the  edge  of  the  nail  on  the  large  toe  of  the 
right  foot.  Their  eyes  are  as  clear  as  un- 
clouded skies — the  apples  on  their  cheeks  are 
like  those  on  the  tree — what  need,  in  either 
case,  of  rubbing  oflTdust  or  dew  with  a  towel  ] 
What  though,  from  sleeping  without  a  night- 
cap, their  hair  may  be  a  little  toosey!  It  is 
not  dim — dull — oilj- — like  half-withered  sea- 
weeds! It  will  soon  comb  itself  with  the  fin- 
gers of  the  west  wind — that  tent-like  tree  its 
toilette — its  mirror  that  pool  of  the  clear-tlow- 
ing  Tweed. 

Some  streams,  just  like  some  men,  are  al- 
"ways  dirty — you  cannot  possibly  tell  why — 
unproducible  to  good  pic-nic  society  either  in 
dry  or  wet  weather.  In  dry,  the  oozy  wretches 
are  weeping  among  the  slippery  weeds,  infest- 
ed with  eels  and  powheads.  In  wet,  they  are 
like  so  many  common  sewers,  strewn  with 
dead  cats  and  broken  crockery,  and  threaten- 
ing with  their  fierce  fulzie  to  pollute  the  sea. 
The  sweet,  soft,  pure  rains,  soon  as  they  touch 
the  flood  are  changed  into  filth.  The  sun  sees 
his  face  in  one  of  the  pools,  and  is  terrified  out 
of  his  senses.  He  shines  no  more  that  day. 
The  clouds  have  no  notion  of  being  carica- 
tured, and  the  trees  keep  cautiously  away  from 
the  brink  of  such  streams — save,  perchance, 
now  and  then,  here  and  there,  a  weak,  well- 
meaning  willow — a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches 
— its  leafless  wands  covered  with  bits  of  old 
worsted  stockings,  crowns  of  hats,  a  bauchle, 
(see  Dr.  Jamieson,)  and  the  remains  of  a  pair 
of  corduroy  breeches,  long  hereditary  in  the 
family  of  the  Blood-Royal  of  the  Yetholm 
Gipsies. 

Some  streams,  just  like  some  men,  are  al- 
ways clean — you  cannot  well  tell  why — produ- 
cible to  good  pic-nic  society  either  in  dry  or  wet 
weather.  In  dry,  the  pearly  waters  are  sing- 
ing among  the  freshened  flowers — so  that  the 
trout,  if  he  chooses,  may  breakfast  upon  bees. 
In  wet,  they  grow,  it  is  true,  dark  and  drumly 
— and  at  midnight,  when  heaven's  candles  are 
put  out,  loud  and  oft  the  angry  spirit  of  the  wa- 
ter shrieks.  But  Aurora  beholds  her  face  in 
the  clarified  pools  and  shallows — far  and  wide 
glittering  with  silver  or  with  gold.  All  the 
■banks  and  braes  re-appear  green  as  emerald 
from  the  subsiding  current — into  which  look 
"with  the  eye  of  an  angler,  and  you  behold  a 
Fish — a  twenty  pounder — steadying  himself — 
like  an  uncertain  shadow;  and  oh!  for  George 
Scougal's  leister  to  strike  him  through  the 
spine!  Yes,  these  are  the  images  of  trees,  far 
down  as  if  in  another  world;  and  whether  you 
look  up  or  look  down,  alike  in  all  its  blue, 


braided,  and  unbounded  beauty,  is  the  morning 
sky! 

Irishmen  are  generally  men  of  the  kind  thus 
illustrated — generally  sweet — at  least  in  their 
own  green  Isle;  and  that  was  the  best  argu- 
ment in  favour  of  Catholic  Emancipation. — So 
are  Scotsmen.  Whereas,  blindfolded,  take  a 
London,  Edinburgh,  or  Glasgow  Cockney's 
hand,  immediately  after  it  has  been  washed 
and  scented,  and  put  it  to  your  nose — and  you 
will  begin  to  be  apprehensive  that  some  prac- 
tical wit  has  substituted  in  lieu  of  the  sonnet- 
scribbling  bunch  of  little  fetid  fives,  the  body 
of  some  chicken-butcher  of  a  weasel,  that  died 
of  the  plague.  We  have  seen  as  much  of  what 
is  most  ignorantly  and  malignantly  denomi- 
nated dirt — one  week's  earth — washed  off  the 
feet  of  a  pretty  young  girl  on  a  Saturday  night,  at 
a  single  sitting  in  the  little  rivulet  that  runs 
almost  round  about  her  father's  hut,  as  would 
have  served  him  to  raise  his  mignionelte  in,  or 
his  crop  of  cresses.  How  beautifully  glowed 
the  crimson  snow  of  the  singing  creature's  new 
washed  feet!  First  as  they  shone  almost  mo- 
tionless beneath  the  lucid  waters — and  then, 
fearless  of  the  hard  bent  and  rough  roots  of 
the  heather,  bore  the  almost  alarming  Fairy 
dancing  away  from  the  eyes  of  the  stranger; 
till  the  courteous  spirit  that  reigns  over  all  the 
Highland  wilds  arrested  her  steps  knee-deep  in 
bloom,  and  bade  her  bow  her  auburn  head,  as 
blushing,  she  faltered  forth,  in  her  sweet  Gaelic 
accents,  a  welcome  that  thrilled  like  a  blessing 
through  the  heart  of  the  Sassenach,  nearly  be- 
nighted, and  wearied  sore  with  the  fifty  glorious 
mountain-miles  that  intermit  at  times  their 
frowning  forests  from  the  correis  of  Cruachan 
to  the  cliffs  of  Cairngorm. 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  hurried  remarks, 
that  there  is  more  truth  than,  perhaps,  Dr. 
Kitchiner  was  aware  of,  in  his  apothegm— 
"that  a  clean  skin  may  be  regarded  as  next  in 
efl[icacy  to  a  clear  conscience."  But  the  Doc- 
tor had  but  a  very  imperfect  notion  of  the 
meaning  of  the  %vords  "clean  skin" — his  ob- 
servation being  not  even  skin-deep.  A  wash- 
hand  basin,  a  bit  of  soap,  and  a  coarse  towel^. 
he  thought  would  give  a  Cockney  on  Ludgate- 
hill  a  clean  skin— just  as  many  good  people 
think  that  a  Bible,  a  prayer-book,  and  a  long 
sermon,  can  give  a  clear  conscience  to  a  cri- 
minal in  Newgate.  The  cause  of  the  evil,  in 
both  cases,  lies  too  deep  for  tears.  Millions  of 
men  and  women  pass  through  nature  to  eter- 
nity clean-skinned  and  pious — with  slight  ex- 
pense either  in  soap  or  sermons;  while  mil 
lions  more,  with  much  weekday  bodily  scrub- 
bing, and  much  Sabbath  spiritual  sanctifica- 
tion,  are  held  in  bad  odour  here,  while  they 
live,  by  those  who  happen  to  sit  near  them, 
and  finally  go  out  like  the  stink  of  a  candle. 

Never  stir,  quoth  the  Doctor,  "without 
paper,  pen,  and  ink,  and  a  note-book  in  your 
pocket.  Notes  made  by  pencils  are  easily  ob- 
literated by  the  motion  of  travelling.  Commit 
to  paper  whatever  you  see,  hear,  or  read,  that 
is  remarkable,  with  your  sensations  on  ob- 
serving it — do  this  upon  the  spot,  if  possible, 
at  the  moment  it  first  strikes  you — at  all  events 
do  not  delay  it  beyond  the  first  convenient  op 
portunity." 


238 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


Suppose  all  people  behaved  in  this  way — 
and  what  an  absurd  world  we  should  have  of 
it — every  man,  woman,  and  child  who  could 
write,  jotting  away  at  their  note-books  !  This 
committing  to  paper  of  whatever  you  see,  hear, 
or  read,  has,  among  many  other  bad  effects, 
this  one  especially — in  a  few  years  it  reduc-es 
you  to  a  state  of  idiocy.  The  memory  of  all 
men  who  commit  to  paper  becomes  regularly 
extinct,  we  have  observed,  about  the  age  of 
thirty.  Now,  although  the  Memory  does  not 
bear  a  very  brilliant  reputation  among  the 
faculties,  a  man  finds  himself  very  much  at  a 
stand  who  is  unprovided  with  one  ;  for  the 
Imagination,  the  Judgment,  and  the  Reason 
walk  off  in  search  of  the  Memory — each  in 
opposite  directions ;  and  the  Mind,  left  at 
home  by  itself,  is  in  a  very  awkward  predica- 
ment— gets  comatose — snores  loudly,  and  ex- 
pires. For  our  own  part,  we  would  much 
ratlier  lose  our  Imagination  and  our  Judg- 
ment— nay,  our  very  Reason  itself — than  our 
Memory — provided  we  were  suffered  to  retain 
a  little  Feeling  and  a  little  Fancy.  Commit- 
ters to  paper  forget  that  the  Memory  is  a  tablet, 
or  they  carelessly  tling  that  mysterious  tablet 
away,  soft  as  wax  to  receive  impressions,  and 
harder  than  adamant  to  retain  and  put  their 
trust  in  a  bit  of  calf-skin,  or  a  bundle  of  old 
rags. 

The  observer  who  instantly  jots  down  every 
object  he  sees,  never,  properly  speaking,  saw 
an  object  in  his  life.  There  has  always  been 
in  the  creature's  mind  a  feeling  alien  to  that 
which  the  object  would,  of  its  pure  self,  have 
excited.  The  very  preservation  of  a  sort  of 
style  in  the  creature's  remarks,  costs  him  an 
effort  which  disables  him  from  understanding 
what  is  before  him,  by  dividing  the  small  at- 
tention of  which  he  might  have  been  capable, 
between  the  jolting,  the  jotter,  and  the  thing 
jotted.  Then  your  committer  to  paper  of 
whatever  he  sees,  hears,  or  reads,  forgets  or 
has  never  known  that  all  real  knowledge, 
either  of  men  or  things,  must  be  gathered  up 
by  operations  which  are  in  their  very  being 
spontaneous  and  free — the  mind  being  even 
unconscious  of  them  as  they  are  going  on — 
while  the  edifice  has  all  the  time  been  silently 
rising  up  under  the  uninterniitting  labours  of 
those  silent  workers — Thoughts  ;  and  is  finally 
seen,  not  without  wonder,  by  the  Mind  or  Soiil 
itself,  which,  gentle  reader,  was  all  along 
Architect  and  Foreman — had  not  only  origi- 
nally planned,  but  had  even  daily  superintend- 
ed tile  building  of  the  Temple. 

Were  Dr.  Kitchiner  not  dead,  we  should 
just  put  to  him  this  simple  question — Could 
you.  Doctor,  not  recollect  all  the  dishes  of  the 
most  various  dinner  at  which  you  ever  assist- 
ed, down  to  the  obscurest  kidney,  without 
committing  every  item  to  your  note-book? 
Yes,  Doctor,  3'^ou  could.  Well,  then,  all  the 
universe  is  but  one  great  dinner.  Heaven 
and  earth,  what  a  show  of  dishes !  From  a 
sun  to  a  salad — a  moon  to  a  mutton-chop — a 
comet  to  a  curry — a  planet  to  a  pate  !  What 
gross  ingratitude  to  the  Giver  of  the  feast,  not 
to  be  able,  with  the  memory  he  has  given  us, 
to  remember  his  bounties !  It  is  true,  what 
ihfl  Doctor  says,  that  notes  made  with  pencils 


are  easily  obliterated  by  the  motion  of  travel- 
ling; but,  then.  Doctor,  notes  made  by  the 
Mind  herself,  with  the  Ruby  Pen  Nature  gives 
all  her  children  who  have  also  discourse  of 
Reason,  are  with  the  slightest  touch,  easilier 
far  than  glass  by  the  diamond,  traced  en  the 
tablets  that  disease  alone  seems  to  deface, 
death  alone  to  break,  but  which,  ineffaceable, 
and  not  to  be  broken,  shall  with  all  their  mis- 
cellaneous inscriptions  endure  for  ever — yea, 
even  to  the  great  Day  of  Judgment. 

If  men  will  but  look  and  listen,  and  feel  and 
Ihink — they  will  never  forget  any  thing  worth 
being  remembered.  Do  we  forget  "our  chil- 
dren, that  to  our  eyes  are  dearer  than  the 
sun  V  Do  we  forget  our  wives — unreason- 
able and  almost  downright  disagreeable  as 
they  sometimes  will  be  7  Do  we  forget  our 
triumphs — our  defeats — ciur  ecstasies,  our  ago- 
nies— the  face  of  a  dear  friend,  or  "dearest 
foe  — the  ghostlike  voice  of  conscience  at 
midnight  arraigning  us  of  crimes — or  her 
seraph  hymn,  at  which  the  gates  of  heaven 
seem  to  expand  for  us  that  we  may  enter  ia 
among  the  white-robed  spirits,  and 

"  Summer  high  in  bliss  upon  the  hills  of  God  V 

What  are  all  the  jottings  that  ever  were  jotted 
down  on  his  jot-book,  by  the  most  inveterate 
jotter  that  ever  reached  a  raven  age,  in  com- 
parison with  the  Library  of  Useful  Know- 
ledge, that  every  man — who  is  a  man — carries 
within  the  Ratcliffe — the  Bodleian  of  his  own 
breast  J 

What  are  you  grinning  at  in  the  corner 
there,  you  little  ugly  Beelzebub  of  a  Printer's 
Devil?  and  have  you  dropped  through  a  seam 
in  the  ceiling]  More  copy  do  you  want? 
There,  you  imp — vanished  like  a  thought ! 


SECOND  COURSE. 

AnoTE  all  things,  continues  Dr.  Kitchiner, 
"  avoid  travelling  through  the  night,  which,  by 
interrupting  sleep,  and  exposing  the  body  to 
the  night  air,  is  always  prejudicial,  even  in  the 
mildest  weather,  and  to  the  strongest  constitu- 
tions." Pray.  Doctor,  what  ails  you  at  the 
night  air?  If  the  night  air  be,  even  in  the 
mildest  weather,  prejudicial  to  the  strongest 
constitutions,  what  do  you  think  becomes  of 
the  cattle  on  a  thousand  hills  ?  Why  don't  all 
the  bulls  in  Bashan  die  of  the  asthma — or  look 
interesting  by  moonlight  m  a  galloping  con- 
sumption ?  Nay,  if  the  night  air  be  so  very 
fatal,  how  do  you  account  fur  the  longevity  of 
owls  ?  Have  you  never  read  of  the  Chaldean 
shepherds  watching  the  courses  of  the  stars  ? 
Or,  to  come  nearer  our  own  times,  do  you  not 
know  that  every  blessed  night  throughout 
the  year,  thousands  of  young  lads  and  lasses 
meet,  either  beneath  the  milk-white  thorn — or 
on  the  lea-rig,  although  the  night  be  ne'er  sae 
wet,  and  they  be  ne'er  sae  weary — or  under  a 
rock  on  the  hill — or — no  uncommon  case- 
beneath  a  frozen  stack — not  of  chimneys,  but 
of  corn-sheaves — or  on  a  couch  of  snow — and 
that  they  are  all  as  warm  as  so  many  pies ; 
while,  instead  of  feehng  what  you  call  "  th« 


DR.  KITCHINER. 


239 


lack  of  vigour  attendant  on  the  loss  of  sleep, 
which  is  as  enfeebling  and  as  distressing  as 
the  languor  that  attends  the  want  of  food," 
they  are,  to  use  a  homely  Scotch  expression, 
"neither  to  haud  nor  bind ;"  the  eyes  of  the 
young  lads  being  all  as  brisk,  bold,  and  bright 
as  the  stars  in  Charles's  Wain,  while  those  of 
the  young  lasses  shine  with  a  soft,  faint,  ob- 
scure, but  beautiful  lustre,  like  the  dewy 
Pleiades,  over  which  nature  has  insensibly 
been  breathing  a  mist  almost  waving  and 
wavering  into  a  veil  of  clouds  ] 

Have  you,  our  dear  Doctor,  no  compassion 
for  those  unfortunate  blades,  who,  vokntea- 
volcntcs,  must  remam  out  perennially  all  night 
— we  mean  the  blades  of  grass,  and  also  the 
flowers'?  Their  constitutions  seem  often  far 
from  strong;  and  shut  your  eyes  on  a  frosty 
night,  and  you  will  hear  them — we  have  done  so 
many  million  times — shivering,  ay,  absolutely 
shivering  under  their  coat  of  hoar-frost !  If 
the  night  air  be  indeed  what  Dr.  Kitchiner  has 
declared  it  to  be — Lord  have  mercy  on  the 
vegetable  world  !  What  agonies  in  that  field 
of  turnips!  Alas,  poor  Swedes  !  The  imagina- 
tion recoils  from  the  condition  of  that  club  of 
winter  cabbages — and  of  what  materials,  pray, 
must  the  heart  of  that  man  be  made,  who 
could  think  but  for  a  moment  on  the  case  of 
those  carrots,  without  bursting  into  a  flood  of 
tears ! 

The  Doctor  avers  that  the  firm  health  and 
fine  spirits  of  persons  who  live  in  the  country, 
are  not  more  from  breathing  a  purer  air,  than 
from  enjoying  plenty  of  sound  sleep;  and  the 
most  distressing  misery  of  "this  Elysium  of 
bricks  and  mortar,"  is  the  rareness  with  which 
we  enjoy  "  the  sweets  of  a  slumber  unbroke." 

Doctor — in  the  first  place,  it  is  somewhat 
doubtful  whether  or  not  persons  who  live  in 
the  country  have  firmer  health  and  finer  spirits 
than  persons  who  live  in  towns — even  in  Lon- 
don. What  kind  of  persons  do  you  mean1 
You  must  not  be  allowed  to  select  some  dozen 
or  two  of  the  hairiest  among  the  curates — a 
few  chosen  rectors  whose  faces  have  been  but 
lately  elevated  to  the  purple — a  team  of  pre- 
bends issuing  sleek  from  their  golden  stalls — 
a  picked  bishop — a  sacred  band  the  elite  of  the 
squirearchy — with  a  corresponding  sprinkling 
of  superior  noblemen  from  lords  to  dukes — 
and  then  to  compare  them,  cheek  by  jowl,  with 
an  equal  number  of  external  objects  taken 
from  the  common  run  of  Cockneys.  This, 
Doctor,  is  manifestly  what  you  are  ettling  at — 
but  you  must  clap  your  hand.  Doctor,  without 
discrimination,  on  the  great  body  of  the  rural 
population  of  England,  male  and  female,  and 
take  whatever  comes  first — be  it  a  poor,  wrin- 
kled, toothless,  blear-eyed,  palsied  hag,  totter- 
ing horizontally  on  a  staff,  under  the  load  of  a 
premature  old  age,  (for  she  is  not  yet  fifty,) 
brought  on  by  annual  rheumatism  and  pe- 
rennial poverty  ; — Be  it  a  young,  ugly,  un- 
married woman,  far  advanced  in  pregnancy,  and 
sullenly. trooping  to  the  alehouse,  to  meet  the 
overseer  of  the  parish  poor,  who,  enraged  with 
the  unborn  bastard,  is  about  to  force  the  parish 
bully  to  marry  the  parish  prostitute  ; — Be  it  a 
landlord  of  a  rural  inn,  Avith  pig  eyes  peering 
over  his  ruby  cheeks,  the  whole  machinery  of 


his  mouth  so  deranged  by  tippling  that  be 
simultaneously  snorts,  stutters,  slavers  and 
snores — pot-bellied — shanked  like  a  spindle- 
strae — and  bidding  fair  to  be  buried  on  or  be- 
fore Saturday  week  ; — Be  it  a  half-drunk  horse- 
cowper,  swinging  to  and  fro  in  a  wraprascal 
on  a  bit  of  broken-down  blood  that  once  won 
a  fifty,  every  sentence,  however  short,  having 
but  two  intelligible  words,  an  oath  and  a  lie — 
his  heart  rotten  with  falsehood,  tind  his  bowels 
burned  up  with  brandy,  so  that  sudden  death 
may  pull  him  from  his  saddle  before  he  put 
spurs  to  his  sporting  filly  that  she  may  bilk 
the  turnpike  man,  and  carry  him  more  speedily 
home  to  beat  or  murder  his  poor,  pale,  in- 
dustrious char-woman  of  a  wife  ; — Be  it — not 
a  beggar,  for  beggars  are  prohibited  from  this 
parish — but  a  pauper  in  the  sulks,  dying  on 
her  pittance  from  the  poor-rates,  which  alto- 
gether amount  in  merry  England  but  to  about 
the  paltry  sum  of,  more  or  less,  six  millions  a 
year — her  son,  all  the  while,  being  in  a  thriv- 
ing way  as  a  general  merchant  in  the  capital 
of  the  parish,  and  with  clear  profits  from  his 
business  of  £300  per  annum,  yet  suffering  the 
mother  that  bore  him,  and  suckled  him,  and 
washed  his  childish  hands,  and  combed  the 
bumpkin's  hair,  and  gave  him  Epsoms  in  a 
cup  when  her  dear  Johnny-raw  had  the  belly- 
ache, to  go  down,  step  by  step,  as  surely  and 
as  obviously  as  one  is  seen  going  down  a 
stair  with  a  feeble  hold  of  the  banisters,  and 
sUimbling  every  footfall,  down  that  other 
fiight  of  steps  that  consist  of  flags  that  are 
mortal  damp  and  mortal  cold,  and  lead  to 
nothing  but  a  parcel  of  rotten  planks,  and 
overhead  a  vault  dripping  with  perpetual  mois- 
ture, green  and  slobbery,  such  as  toads  delight 
in  crawling  heavily  through  with  now  and 
then  a  bloated  leap,  and  hideous  things  more 
worm-like,  that  go  wriggling  briskly  in  and  out 
among  the  refuse  of  the  coffins,  and  are  heard, 
by  imagination  at  least,  to  emit  faint  angry 
sounds,  because  the  light  of  day  has  hurt  their 
eyes,  and  the  air  from  the  upper  world  weak- 
ened the  rank  savoury  smell  of  corruption, 
clothing,  as  with  a  pall,  all  the  inside  walls  of 
the  tombs;— Be  it  a  man  yet  in  the  prime  of 
life  as  to  years,  six  feet  and  an  inch  high,  and 
measuring  round  the  chest  forty-eight  inches, 
(which  is  more,  reader,  than  thou  dost  by  six, 
we  bet  a  sovereign,  member  although  thou 
even  be'st  of  the  Edinburgh  Six  Feet  Club,)  to 
whom  Washington  Irving's  Jack  Tibbuts  was 
but  a  Tims— but  then  ever  so  many  game- 
keepers met  him  all  alone  in  my  lord's  phea- 
sant preserve,  and  though  two  of  them  died 
within  the  month,  two  within  the  year,  and 
two  are  now  in  the  workhouse — one  a  mere 
idiot,  and  the  other  a  madman — both  shadows 

so  terribly  were  their  bodies  mauled,  and  so 

sorely  were  their  skulls  fractured; — yet  the 
poacher  was  taken,  tried,  hulked;  and  there  he 
sits  now,  sunning  himself  on  a  bank  by  the 
edge  of  a  wood  whose  haunts  he  must  thread 
no  more— for  the  keepers  were  grim  bone- 
breakers  enough  in  their  way— and  when  they 
had  gotten  him  on  his  hack,  one  gouged  him 
like  a  Yankee,  and  the  other  bit  off  his  nose 
like  a  Bolton  Trotter— and  one  smashed  his 
OS  froniis  with  the  nailed  heel  of  a  two-pound 


240 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


wooden  clog,  a  Preston  Purrer ; — so  that  Master 
Allonby  is  now  far  from  being  a  beauty,  with 
a  face  of  that  description  attached  to  a  head 
wagging  from  side  to  side  under  a  powerful 
palsy,  while  the  Mandarin  drinks  damnation 
to  the  Lord  of  the  Manor  in  a  horn  of  eleemo- 
synary ale,  handed  to  him  by  the  village  black- 
smith, in  days  of  old  not  the  worst  of  the  gang, 
and  who,  but   for  a  stupid  jury,  a  merciful 
judge,  and  something  like  prevarication  in  the 
circumstantial    evidence,   would    have    been 
hanged  for  a  murderer — as  he  was — dissected, 
and  hung  in  chains ; — Be  it  a  red-haired  wo- 
man, with  a  pug  nose,  small  fiery  eyes,  high 
cheekbones,  bulging  lips,  and  teeth  like  swine- 
tusks,— bearded — flal-breasted  as  a  man — tall, 
scambling  in  her  gait,  but  swift,  and  full  of 
wild  motions  in  her  weather-withered  arms,  all 
starting  with  sinews  like  whipcord — the  Pedes- 1 
trian  Post  to  and  fro  the  market  town  twelve 
miles  ofl"— and  so  powerful  a  pugilist  thai  she 
hit  Grace  Maddox  senseless  in  seven  minutes — i 
tried  before  she  was  eighteen  for  child-murder, 
but  not  hanged,  although  the    man-child,  of  I 
which  the  drab  was  self-delivered   in  a  ditch, , 
was  ft)uiid  with  blue  finger-marks  on  its  wind-i 
pipe,  bloody  mouth,  and  eyes  forced  out  of  their 
sockets,  buried   in   the   dunghill    behind   her 
father's  hut — not  hanged,  because  a  surgeon,' 
originally  bred  asow-gelder,  swore  that  he  be-' 
lievcd  the  mother  had  unconsciously  destroyed 
her  offspring  in  the  throes  of  travail,  if  indeed 
it  had  ever  breathed,  for  the  lungs  would  i#)t ' 
swim,  he  swore,  in  a  basin  of  water — so  the  in- 
cestuous murderess  was  let  loose;  her  brother' 
got  hanged  in  due  lime  after  the  mutiny  at  the  \ 
Nore — and  her  father,  the   fishmonger — Wh)'. 
he  went  red  raving  mad  as  if  a  dog  had  bitten 
him — and  died,  as  the  same  surgeon  and  sow- 
gelder  averred,  of  the  hydrophobia,  foaming  al 
the  mouth,  gnashing  his   teeth,  and  some  said 
cursing,  but  that  was  a  calumny,  for  something 
seemed  to  be  the  matter  with  his  tongue,  and 
he    could    not   speak,   only    splutter — nobody 
venturing,  except  his  amiable  daughter — and 
in  that  particular  act  of  filial  aflection  shcM-as 
amiable — to  hold    in  the  article  of  death  the 
old  man's  head  ;— Be  it  that  moping  idiot  that ' 
would  sit,  were  she  suffered,  on,  on,  on — night 
and  day  for  ever,  on  the  selfsame  spot,  what- 
ever that  spot  might  be  on  which  she  hap- 
pened to   squat   al  morning,  mound,  wall,  or 
stone — motionless,  dumb,  and,  as  a  stranger 
would  think,  also  blind,  for   the   eyelids  are 
still  shut — never  opened  in  sun  or  storm; — yet 
that  figure — that  which  is   now,  and  has  for 
years  been,  an  niter  and  hopeless  idiot,  was 
once  a  gay,  laughing,  dancing,  singing  girl, 
whose  blue  eyes  seemed  full  of  light,  whether 
they  looked  on  earth  or  heaven,  the  flowers  or 
the  stars — her  sweet-heart — a  rational  young 
man,  it  would  appear— having  leapt  out  upon 
her  suddenly,  as  she  was  passing  through  the 
churchyard  at  night,  from  behind  a  tomb-stone 
in  a  sack  which  she,  having  little  time    for 
consideration,  and   being    naturally   supersti- 
tious, supposed  to  be  a  shroud,  and  the  wearer 
thereof,  who  was  an  active  stripling  of  sound 
flesh  and  blood,  to  be  a  ghost  or  skeleton,  all 
one  horrid  rattle  of  bones  ;   so  that  the  trick 
succeeded  far  beyond  the  most  sanguine  ex- 


pectation of  the  Tailor  who  played  the  princl 
pal  part — and  sense,  feeling,  memory,  imagina- 
tion, and  reason,  were  all  felled  by  one  blow 
of  fear — as  butcher  felleth  ox — Mhile  by  one 
of  those  mysteries,  which  neither  we,  nor  you, 
nor  anybody  else,  can  understand,  life  re- 
mained not  only  unimpaired,  but  even  in- 
vigorated; and  there  she  sits,  like  a  clock 
wound  up  to  go  a  certain  time,  the  machinery 
of  which  being  good,  has  riot  been  altogether 
deranged  by  the  shock  that  sorely  cracked  the 
case,  and  will  work  till  the  chain  is  run  down,  and 
then  it  will  tick  no  more; — Be  it  that  tall,  fair, 
lovely  girl,  so  thin  and  attenuated  that  all  wonder 
she  can  walk  by  herself — that  she  is  not  blown 
away  even  by  the  gentle  summer  breeze  that 
wooes  the  hectic  of  her  cheek — dying  all  see 
— and  none  better  than  her  poor  old  mother — 
and  yet  herself  thoughtless  of  the  coming 
doom,  and  cheerful  as  a  nest-building  bird — 
while  her  lover,  too  deep  in  despair  to  be  be- 
trayed into  tears,  as  he  carries  her  to  her  couch, 
each  successive  day  feels  the  dear  and  dread- 
ful burden  lighter  and  lighter  in  his  arms. 
Small  strength  will  it  need  to  support  her  bier! 
The  coffin,  as  if  empty,  will  be  lowered  unfelt 
by  the  hands  that  hold  those  rueful  cords ! 

In  mercy  to  our  readers  and  ourselves,  we 
shall  endeavour  lo  prevent  ourselves  from  pur- 
suing this  argument  any  further — and  perhaps 
quite  enough  has  been  said  lo  show  that  Dr. 
Kiichincr's  assertion,  that  persons  who  live  in 
the  country  have  firmer  health  and  finer  spirits 
than  the  inhabitants  of  towns — is  exceedingly 
problematical.  But  even  admitting  the  fact  to 
be  as  the  Doctor  has  stated  it,  we  do  not  think 
he  has  attributed  the  phenomenon  to  the  right 
cause.  He  attributes  it  to  "their  enjoying 
plenty  of  sound  sleep."  The  worthy  Doctor  is 
entirely  out  in  his  conjecture.  The  working 
classes  in  the  country  enjoy,  we  don't  doubt  it, 
sound  sleep — but  not  plenty  of  it.  They  have 
but  a  short  allowance  of  sleep — and  whether 
it  be  sound  or  not,  depends  chiefly  on  them- 
selves; while  as  to  the  noises  in  towns  and 
cities,  they  are  nothing  to  what  one  hears  in 
the  countr)- — unless,  indeed,  you  perversely 
prefer  private  lodgings  at  a  pewterer's.  Did 
we  wish  to  be  personal,  we  could  name  a  single 
waterfall  who,  even  in  dry  weather,  keeps  all 
the  visiters  from  town  awake  within  a  circle 
of  four  miles  diameter;  and  in  wel  weather, 
not  only  keeps  them  all  awake,  but  impresses 
them  with  a  constantly  recurring  conviction 
during  the  hours  of  night,  that  there  is  some- 
thing seriously  amiss  about  the  foundation  of 
the  river,  and  that  the  whole  parish  is  about 
to  be  overflowed,  up  to  the  battlements  of  the 
old  castle  that  overlooks  the  linn.  Then,  on 
another  point,  we  are  certain — namely,  that 
rural  thunder  is  many  hundred  times  more 
powerful  than  villatic.  London  porter  is  above 
admiration — but  London  thunder  below  con- 
tempt. An  ordinary  hackney-coach  beats  it 
hollow.  But,  my  faith  !  a  thunder-storm  in  the 
country — especially  if  it  be  mountainous,  with 
a  few  fine  Woods  and  Forests,  makes  3"ou  in- 
evitably think  of  that  land  from  whose  bourne 
no  traveller  returns;  and  even  our  town  read- 
ers will  acknowledge  that  country'  thunder 
much  more  frequently  proves  mortal  than  the 


DR.  KITCHINER. 


241 


thunder  you  meet  wilh  in  cities.  In  the  coun- 
try, few  thunder-storms  are  contented  to  pass 
over  without  killing  at  least  one  horse,  some 
milch-kine,  half-a-dozen  sucking  pigs  or  tur- 
keys, an  old  woman  or  two,  perhaps  the  Minis- 
ter of  the  parish,  a  man  about  forty,  name 
unknown,  and  a  nursing  mother  at  the  ingle, 
the  child  escaping  with  singed  eye-brows,  and 
a  singular  black  mark  on  one  of  its  great  toes. 
We  say  nothing  of  the  numbers  stupified,  who 
awake  the  day  after,  as  from  a  dream,  with 
strange  pains  in  their  heads,  and  not  altogether 
sure  about  the  names  or  counlenances  of  the 
somewhat  unaccountable  people  whom  they 
see  variously  employed  about  the  premises, 
and  making  themselves  pretty  much  at  home. 
In  towns,  not  one  thunder-storm  in  fifty  that 
performs  an  exploit  more  magnanimous  than 
knocking  down  an  old  wife  from  a  chimney- 
top — singeing  a  pair  of  worsted  stockings  that, 
knit  in  an  ill-starr'd  hour,  when  the  sun  had 
entered- Aries,  had  been  hung  out  to  dry  on  a 
line  in  the  back-yard,  or  garden  as  it  is  called 
— or  cutting  a  few  inches  off  the  tail  of  an  old 
whig  weathercock  that  for  years  had  been 
pecking  the  eyes  oat  of  all  the  airts  the  wind 
can  blaw,  greedy  of  some  still  higher  prefer- 
ment. 

Our  dear  deceased  author  proceeds  to  tell  his 
Traveller  how  to  eat  and  drink;  and  remarks, 
"  that  people  are  apt  to  imagine  that  they  may 
indulge  a  little  more  in  high  living  when  on  a 
journey.  Travelling  itself,  however,  acts  as  a 
stimulus;  therefore  less  nourishment  is  re- 
quired than  in  a  state  of  rest.  What  you  might 
not  consider  intemperate  at  home,  may  occa- 
sion violent  irritation,  fatal  inflammations,  &c., 
in  situations  where  you  are  least  able  to  obtain 
medical  assistance." 

All  this  is  very  loosely  stated,  and  must  be 
set  to  rights.  If  j'ou  shut  yourself  up  for 
some  fifty  hours  or  so  in  a  mail-coach,  that 
keeps  wheeling  along  at  the  rate  of  ten  miles 
an  hour,  and  changes  horses  in  half  a  minute, 
certainly  for  obvious  reasons  the  less  you  eat 
and  drink  the  better;  and  perhaps  an  hourly 
hundred  drops  of  laudanum,  or  equivalent 
grain  of  opium,  would  be  advisable,  so  that  the 
transit  from  London  to  Edinburgh  might  be 
performed  in  a  phantasma.  But  the  free  agent 
ought  to  live  well  on  his  travels — some  degrees 
better,  without  doubt,  than  when  at  home. 
People  seldom  live  very  well  at  home.  There 
is  always  sotaething  requiring  to  be  eaten  up, 
that  it  may  not  be  lost,  which  destroys  the 
.soothing  and  satisfactory  symmetry  of  an  un- 
'exceplionable  dinner.  We  have  detected  the 
same  duck  through  man)'  unprincipled  dis- 
guises, playing  a  different  part  in  the  farce  of 
domestic  economy,  with  a  versatility  hardly  to 
have  been  expected  in  one  of  the  most  gene- 
rally despised  of  the  web-footed  tribe.  When 
travelling  at  one's  own  sweet  will,  one  feeds 
at  a  different  inn  every  meal ;  and,  except 
when  the  coincidence  of  circumstances  is 
against  you,  there  is  an  agreeable  variet}'  both 
in  the  natural  and  artificial  disposition  of  the 
dishes.  True  that  travelling  may  act  as  a 
stimulus — but  false  that  therefore  less  nourish- 
ment is  required.  Would  Dr.  Kitchiner,  if 
BOW  alive,  presume  to  say  that  it  was  right  for 
31 


him,  who  had  sat  all  day  with  his  feet  on  the 
fender,  to  gobble  up,  at  six  o'clock  of  the 
afternoon,  as  enormous  a  dinner  as  we  who 
had  walked  since  sunrise  forty  or  fifty  miles'! 
Because  our  stimulus  had  been  greater,  was 
our  nourishment  to  be  less  1  We  don't  care  a 
curse  about  stimulus.  What  we  want,  in  such 
a  case,  is  lots  of  fresh  food;  and  we  hold  that, 
under  such  circumstances,  a  man  with  a  sound 
Tory  Church-and-King  stomach  and  constitu- 
tion cannot  over-eat  himself — no,  not  for  his 
immortal  soul.  " 

We  had  almost  forgot  to  lake  the  deceased 
Doctor  to  task  for  one  of  the  most  free-and- 
easy  suggestions  ever  made  to  the  ill-disposed, 
how  to  disturb  and  destroy  the  domestic  happi- 
ness of  eminent  literary  characters.  "  An 
introduction  to  eminent  authors  may  be  ob- 
tained," quoth  he  slyly,  "  from  the  booksellers 
who  publish  their  works." 

The  booksellers  who  publish  the  works  of 
eminent  authors  have  rather  more  common 
sense  and  feeling,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  than  this 
comes  to — and  know  better  what  is  the  pro- 
vince of  their  profession.  Any  one  man  may, 
if  he  chooses,  give  any  other  man  an  intro- 
duction to  any  third  man  in  this  world.  Thus 
the  tailor  of  any  eminent  author — or  his  book- 
seller— or  his  parish  minister — or  his  butcher 
— or  his  baker — or  his  "  man  of  business" — 
or  his  house-builder — may,  one  and  all,  give 
sucji  travellers  as  Dr.  Kitchiner  and  others, 
letters  of  introduction  to  the  said  eminent 
author  in  prose  or  verse.  This,  we  have  heard, 
is  sometimes  done — but  fortunately  we  cannot 
speak  from  experience,  not  being  ourselves  an 
eminent  author.  The  more  general  the  inter- 
course between  men  of  taste,  feeling,  cultiA^a- 
tion,  learning,  genius,  the  betler;  but  that 
intercourse  should  be  brought  about  freely  and 
of  its  own  accord,  as  fortunate  circumstances 
permit,  and  there  should  be  no  impertinent 
interference  of  selfish  or  benevolent  go-be- 
tweens. It  would  seem  that  Dr.  Kitchiner 
thought  the  commonest  traveller,  one  who  was 
almost,  as  it  were,  bordering  on  a  Bagman,  had 
nothing  to  do  but  call  on  the  publisher  of  any 
great  writer,  and  get  a  free  admission  into  his 
house.  Had  the  Doctor  not  been  dead,  we 
should  have  given  him  a  severe  rowing  and 
blowing-up  for  this  vulgar  folly;  but  as  he  is 
dead,  we  have  only  to  hope  that  the  readers  of 
the  Oracle  who  intend  to  travel  will  not  degrade 
themselves,  and  disgust  "authors  of  emi- 
nence,"  by  thrusting  their  ugly  or  comely  faces 
— both  are  equally  odious — into  the  privacy  of 
gentlemen  who  have  done  nothing  to  exclude 
themselves  from  the  protection  of  the  laws  of 
civilized  society — or  subject  their  firesides  to 
be  infested  by  one-half  of  the  curious  men  of 
the  country,  two-thirds  of  the  clever,  and  ah 
the  blockheads. 


THIRD  COURSE. 

Hating  thus  briefly  instructed  travellers  how 

to  get  a  look  at  Lions,  the  Doctor  suddenly  ex 

claims — "  Imprimis,  beware  of  dogs  !"  "  There 

have,"  he  says,  "been   many  arguments,  jjro 


242 


EE CREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


and  con,  on  ihe  dreadful  disease  their  bile  pro- 
duces— it  is  enough  to  prove  that  multitudes 
of  men,  women,  and  children  have  died  in 
consequence  of  having  been  bitten  by  dogs. 
What  does  it  matter  whether  they  were  the 
victims  of  bodily  disease  or  mental  irritation? 
The  life  of  the  most  humble  human  being  is 
of  more  value  than  all  the  dogs  in  the  world — 
dare  the  most  brutal  cynic  say  otherwise  1" 

Dr.  Kitchiner  always  travelled,  it  appears, 
in  chaises ;  and  a  chaise  of  one  kind  or  other 
he  recommends  to  all  his  brethren  of  man- 
kind. Why,  then,  this  intense  fear  of  the 
canine  species?  Who  ever  saw  a  mad  dog 
leap  into  the  mail-coach,  or  even  a  gig?  The 
creature,  when  so  afflicted,  hangs  his  head, 
and  goes  snapping  right  and  left  at  pedestrians. 
Poor  people  like  us,  who  must  walk,  may  well 
fear  hydrophobia — though,  thank  Heaven,  we 
have  never,  during  the  course  of  a  tolerably 
long  and  well-spent  life,  been  so  much  as  once 
bitten  by  "  the  rabid  animal !"  But  what  have 
rich  authors,  who  loll  in  carriages,  to  dread 
from  dogs,  who  always  go  on  fool?  We  can- 
not credit  the  very  sweeping  assertion,  that 
multitudes  of  men,  women,  and  children  have 
died  in  consequence  of  being  bitten  by  dogs. 
Even  the  newspapers  do  not  run  up  the  amount 
above  a  dozen  per  annum,  from  which  you  may 
safely  deduct  two-thirds.  Now,  four  men,  wo- 
men and  children,  are  not  "  a  multitude."  Of 
those  four,  we  may  set  down  two  as  problfima- 
tical — having  died,  it  is  true,  in,  but  not  of 
hydrophobia — states  of  mind  and  body  wide 
as  the  poles  asunder.  He  who  drinks  two 
bottles  of  pure  spirit  every  day  he  buttons  and 
unbuttons  his  breeches,  generally  dies  in  a 
state  of  hydrophobia — for  he  abhorred  water, 
and  knew  instinctively  the  jug  containing  that 
insipid  element.  But  he  never  dies  at  all  of 
liydrophobia,  there  being  evidence  to  prove 
that  for  twenty  years  he  had  drunk  nothing  but 
brandy.  Suppose  we  are  driven  to  confess  the 
other  two — why,  one  of  them  was  an  old  wo- 
man of  eighty,  who  was  dying  as  fast  as  she 
could  hobble,  at  the  very  time  she  thought  her- 
self bitten — and  the  other  a  nine-year-old  brat, 
in  ht)oping-cough  and  measles,  who,  had  there 
not  been  such  a  quadruped  as  a  dog  created, 
would  have  worried  itself  to  death  before  eve- 
ning, so  lamentably  had  its  education  been 
neglected,  and  so  dangerous  an  accomplish- 
ment is  an  impish  temper.  The  twelve  cases 
for  the  year  of  that  most  horrible  disease,  hy- 
drophobia, have,  we  flatter  ourselves,  been 
satisfactorily  disposed  of— eight  of  the  alleged 
deceased  being  at  this  moment  engaged  at 
various  handicrafls,  on  low  wages  indeed,  but 
still  such  as  enable  the  industrious  to  live — 
two  having  died  of  drinking — one  of  extreme 
old  age,  and  one  of  a  complication  of  com- 
plaints incident  to  childhood,  their  violence 
having,  in  this  particular  instance,  been  aggra- 
vated by  neglect  and  a  devilish  temper.  Where 
now  the  "  multitude"  of  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, who  have  died  in  consequence  of  being 
bitten  by  mad  dogs  ? 

Gentle  reader — a  mad  dog  is  a  bugbear;  we 
have  walked  many  hundred  times  the  diame- 
ter and  the  circumference  of  this  our  habitable 
globe — aJong  all  roads,  public  and  private — 


with  stiles  or  turnpikes — metropolitan  streets 
and  suburban  paths — and  at  all  seasons  of  the 
revolving  year  and  day  ;  but  never,  as  we  pad- 
ded the  hoof  along,  met  we  nor  were  overtaken 
by  greyhound,  mastiff,  or  cur,  in  a  state  of  hy- 
drophobia. We  have  many  million  times  seen 
them  with  their  tongues  lolling  out  about  a 
yard — their  sides  pating — flag  struck — and  the 
whole  dog  showing  symptoms  of  severe  dis- 
tress. That  such  travellers  were  not  mad,  we 
do  not  assert — they  may  have  been  mad — but 
they  certainly  were  fatigued ;  and  the  differ- 
ence, we  hope,  is  often  considerable  between 
weariness  and  insanity.  Dr.  Kitchiner,  had  he 
seen  such  dogs  as  we  have  seen,  would  have 
fainted  on  the  spot.  He  would  have  raised 
the  countn,'  against  the  harmless  jog-trotter. 
Pitchforks  would  have  gleamed  in  the  setting 
sun,  and  the  flower  of  the  agricultural  youth 
of  a  midland  country,  forming  a  levy  en  masse, 
would  have  offered  battle  to  a  turnspit.  The 
Doctor,  sitting  in  his  coach — like  Napoleon  at 
Waterloo — would  have  cried  "  Tout  est  perdu 
— «ai(iT  qui  pent!" — and  re-galloping  to  a  pro- 
vincial town,  would  have  found  refuge  under 
the  gateway  of  the  Hen  and  Chickens. 

"  The  life  of  the  most  humble  human  being," 
quoth  the  Doctor,  "is  of  more  value  than  all 
the  dogs  in  the  world— dare  the  most  brutal 
cynic  say  otherwise?" 

This  question  is  not  put  to  us;  for  so  far 
from  being  the  most  brutal  Cynic,  we  do  not 
belong  to  the  Cynic  school  at  all — being  an 
Eclectic,  and  our  philosophy  composed  chiefly 
of  Stoicism,  Epicureanism,  and  Peripaieticism 
— with  a  fine,  pure,  clear,  bold  dash  of  Platoni- 
cism.  The  most  brutal  Cynic,  if  now  alive 
and  snarling,  must  therefore  answer  for  him 
self — while  we  tell  the  Doctor,  that  so  far  from 
holding,  with  him,  that  the  life  of  the  mosl 
humble  human  being  is  of  more  value  than  all 
the  dogs  in  the  world,  we,  on  the  contrar)% 
verily  believe  that  there  is  many  an  humble  dog 
whose  life  far  transcends  in  value  the  lives  of 
many  men,  women,  and  children.  Whether  or 
not  dogs  have  souls,  is  a  question  in  philoso- 
phy never  yet  solved;  although  we  have  our 
selves  no  doubt  on  the  subject,  and  firmly  be- 
lieve that  they  have  souls.  But  the  question, 
as  put  by  the  Doctor,  is  not  about  souls,  but 
about  lives;  and  as  the  human  soul  does  not 
die  when  the  human  body  does,  the  death  of 
an  old  woman,  middle-aged  man,  or  young 
child,  is  no  such  ver}'  great  calamity,  either  to 
themselves  or  to  the  world.  Better,  perhaps, 
that  all  the  dogs  now  alive  should  be  massa- 
cred, to  prevent  hydrophobia,  than  that  a  hu- 
man soul  should  be  lost; — but  not  a  single  hu- 
man soul  is  going  to  be  lost,  although  the 
whole  canine  species  should  become  insane 
to-morrow.  Now,  would  the  Doctor  have  laid 
one  hand  on  his  heart  and  the  other  on  his 
Bible,  and  taken  a  solemn  oath  that  rather 
than  that  one  old  woman  of  a  century  and  a 
quarter  should  suddenly  be  cut  off"  by  the  bite 
of  a  mad  dog,  he  would  have  signed  the  war- 
rant of  execution  of  all  the  packs  of  harriers  and 
fox-hounds,  all  the  pointers,  spaniels,  setters, 
and  cockers,  all  the  sta£:-hounds,  greyhounds, 
and  lurchers,  all  the  Newfoundlanders,  shep- 
herd-dogs, mastiff's,  bull-dogs,  and  terriers,  the 


1 


DR.  KITCHINER. 


243 


infinite  generation  of  mongrels  and  crosses  in- 
cluded, in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland — to  say  no- 
thing of  the  sledge-drawers  in  Kamschatka,  and 
in  the  realms  slow-moving  near  the  Pole  1  To 
clench  the  argument  at  once — What  are  all  the 
old  women  in  Europe,  one-half  of  the  men,  and 
one-third  of  the  children,  when  compared,  in  va- 
lue, with  any  one  of  Christopher  North's  New- 
foundland dogs — Fro — Bronie — or  O'Bronte  1 
Finally,  does  he  include  in  his  sweeping  con- 
demnation the  whole  brute  creation,  lions,  ti- 
gers, panthers,  ounces,  elephants,  rhinoceroses, 
hippopotami,  camelopardales,  zebras,  quaggas, 
cattle,  horses,  asses,  mules,  cats,  the  ichneu- 
mon, cranes,  storks,  cocks-of-the-wood,  geese, 
and  how-towdies  1 

"Semi-drowning  in  the  sea" — he  continues 
— "and  all  the  pretended  specifics,  are  mere 
delusions — there  is  no  real  remedy  but  cutting 
the  part  out  immediately.  If  the  bite  be  near 
a  bloodvessel,  that  cannot  always  be  done,  nor 
when  done,  however  well  done,  will  it  always 
prevent  the  miserable  victim  from  dying  the 
most  dreadful  of  deaths.  Well  might  St.  Paul 
tell  us  to  '  beware  of  dogs.^  First  Epistle  to 
Philippians,  chap.  iii.  v.  2." 

Semi-drowning  in  the  sea  is,  we  grant,  a  bad 
specific,  and  difficult  to  be  administered.  It  is 
not  possible  to  tell,  a  priori,  how  much  drown- 
ing any  particular  patient  can  bear.  What  is 
mere  semi-drowning  to  James,  is  total  drown- 
ing to  John; — Tom  is  easy  of  resuscitation — 
Bob  will  not  stir  a  muscle  for  all  the  Humane 
Societies  in  the  United  Kingdoms.  To  cut  a 
pound  of  flesh  from  the  rump  of  a  fat  dowager, 
who  turns  sixteen  stone,  is  within  the  practi- 
cal skill  of  the  veriest  bungler  in  the  anatomy 
of  the  human  frame — to  scarify  the  fleshless 
spindle-shank  of  an  antiquated  spinstress,  who 
lives  on  a  small  annuity,  might  be  beyond  the 
scalpel  of  an  Abernethy  or  a  Liston.  A  large 
bloodvessel,  as  the  Doctor  well  remarks,  is  an 
awkward  neighbour  to  the  wound  made  by  the 
bile  of  a  mad  dog,  "  when  a  new  excision  has 
to  be  attempted" — but  will  any  Doctor  living 
inform  us  how,  in  a  thousand  other  cases  be- 
sides hydrophobia,  "the  miserable  victim  may 
always  be  prevented  from  dying  1"  There  are, 
probabl}',  more  dogs  in  Britain  than  horses ; 
yet  a  hundred  men,  women,  and  children  are 
killed  by  kicks  of  sane  horses,  for  one  by  bites 
of  insane'dogs.  Is  the  British  army,  therefore, 
to  be  deprived  of  its  left  arm,  the  cavalry  1  Is 
there  to  be  no  flying  artillery  1  M'^hat  is  to  be- 
come of  the  horse-marines  ] 

Still  the  Doctor,  though  too  dogmatical,  and 
rather  puppyish  above,  is,  at  times,  sensible 
on  dogs. 

"Therefore,"  quoth  he,  "never  travel  with- 
out a  good  tough  Black  Thorn  in  your  Fist, 
not  less  than  three  feet  in  length,  on  which 
ma}'  be  marked  the  Inches,  and  so  it  may  serve 
for  a  measure. 

"  Pampered  Dogs,  that  are  permitted  to 
prance  about  as  they  please,  when  they  hear  a 
knock,  scamper  to  the  door,  and  not  seldom 
snap  at  imwary  visiters.  Whenever  Counsel- 
lor Catdious  went  to  a  house,  &c.,  where  he  was 
not  quite  certain  that  there  was  no  Dog,  after 
he  had  rapped  at  the  door,  he  retired  three  or 
four  yards  from  it,  and  prepared  against  the 


Enemy:  when  the  door  was  opened,  he  de- 
sired, if  there  was  any  Dog,  that  it  might  be 
shut  up  till  he  was  gone,  and  would  not  enter 
the  House  till  it  was. 

"  Sword  and  Turk  Sticks,  as  commonly  made, 
are  hardly  so  good  a  weapon  as  a  stout  Stick 
— the  Blades  are  often  inserted  into  the  Han- 
dles in  such  a  slight  manner,  that  one  smart 
blow  will  break  them  out ; — if  you  wish  for  a 
Sicord-Cane,  you  must  have  one  made  with  a 
good  Regulation  Blade,  which  alone  will  cost 
more  than  is  usually  charged  for  the  entire 
Stick. — I  have  seen  a  Cane  made  by  Mr.  Price, 
of  the  Stick  and  Umbrella  Warehouse,  221,  in  the 
Strand,  near  Temple  Bar,  which  was  excel- 
lently put  together. 

"  A  powerful  weapon,  and  a  very  smart  and 
light-looking  thing,  is  an  Iron  Stick  of  about 
four-tenths  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  with  a  Hook 
next  the  Hand,  and  terminating  at  the  other 
end  in  a  Spike  about  five  inches  in  length, 
which  is  covered  by  a  Ferrule,  the  whole 
painted  the  colour  of  a  common  walking-stick; 
it  has  a  light  natty  appearance,  while  it  is  iu 
fact  a  most  formidable  Instrument." 

We  cannot  charge  our  memory  with  this  in- 
strument, yet  had  we  seen  one  once,  we  hardly 
think  we  could  have  forgot  it.  But  Colonel  de 
Berenger  in  his  Helps  and  Hints  prefers  the 
umbrella.  Umbrellas  are  usually  carried,  we 
believe,  in  wet  weather,  and  dogs  run  mad,  if 
ever,  in  dry.  So  the  safe  plan  is  to  carry  one 
all  the  year  through,  like  the  Duke. 

"  I  found  it  a  valiiable  weapon,  although  by 
mere  chance ;  for  walking  alone  in  the  rain, 
a  large  mad  dog,  pursued  by  men,  suddenly 
turned  upon  me,  out  of  a  street  which  I  had 
just  approached ;  by  instinct  more  than  by 
judgment,  I  gave  point  at  him  severely, opened 
as  the  umbrella  was,  which,  screening  me  at 
the  same  time,  tvas  an  article  from  xchich  he  did 
not  expect  thrusts :  but  which,  although  made  at 
guess,  for  I  could  not  see  him,  turned  him  over 
and  over,  and  before  he  could  recover  himself, 
his  pursuers  had  come  up  immediately  to  des- 
patch him;  the  whole  being  the  work  of  even 
few  seconds ;  but  for  the  umbrella  the  horrors 
of  hydrophobia  might  have  fallen  to  my  lot." 

There  is  another  mode,  which,  with  the 
omission  or  alteration  of  a  word  or  two,  looks 
feasible,  supposing  we  had  to  deal  not  with  a 
bull-dog,  but  a  young  lady  of  our  own  species. 
"  If,"  says  the  Colonel,  "  3'ou  can  seize  a  dog's 
front  paw  neatly,  and  immediately  squeeze  it 
sharply,  he  cannot  bite  you  till  you  cease  to 
squeeze  it;  therefore,  by  keeping  him  thus  well 
pinched,  3'ou  may  lead  him  wherever  you  like ; 
or  you  may,  with  the  other  hand,  seize  him  by 
the  skin  of  the  neck,  to  hold  him  thus  without 
danger,  provided  your  strength  is  equal  to  his 
efforts  at  extrication."  But  here  comes  the 
Colonel's  infallible  vade-mecum. 

"  Look  at  them  with  your  face  from  between 
your  open  legs,  holding  the  skirts  away,  and 
running  at  them  thus  backwards,  of  course 
head  below,  stern  exposed  and  above,  and 
growling  angrily,  most  dogs,  seeing  so  strange 
an  animal,  the  head  at  the  heels,  the  eyes  be- 
low the  mouth,  &c.,  are  so  dismayed,  that,  with 
their  tails  between  their  legs,  they  are  glad  to 
scamper  away,  some  even  howling  with  af 


244 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


fright.  I  have  never  tried  it  with  a  thorough- 
bred bull-dog,  nor  do  I  advise  it  with  them  ; 
though  I  have  practised  it,  and  successfully, 
with  most  of  the  other  kinds ;  it  might  fail  with 
these,  still  I  cannot  say  it  will." 

Thus  armed  against  the  canine  species,  the 
Traveller,  according  to  our  Oracle,  must  also 
provide  himself  with  a  portable  case  of  in- 
struments for  drawing — a  sketch  and  note 
book — paper — ink — and  riss — needles — and 
THHEAi)  !  A  rub}'  or  Rhodium  pen,  made  by 
Doughty,  No.  10,  Great  Ormnnd  Sireet — pen- 
cils from  Langdon's  of  Great  Russell  Sireet — a 
folding  one-foot  rule,  divided  into  eighths, 
tenths,  and  twelfths  of  inches — a  hunting  watch 
with  seconds,  with  a  detached  lever  or  Du- 
pleix's  escapement,  in  good  strong  silver  cases 
— Dollond's  achromatic  opera-glass — a  night- 
lamp — a  tinder-box — two  pair  of  spectacles, 
with  strong  silver  frames — an  eye-glass  in  a 
silver  ring  slung  round  the  neck — a  traveller's 
knife,  containing  a  large  and  small  blade,  a 
saw,  hook  for  taking  a  stone  out  of  a  horse's 
shoe,  turnscrew,  gunpicker,  tweezers,  and  long 
corkscrew — galochcs  or  paraloses — your  own 
knife  and  fork,  and  spoon — a  Welsh  wig — a 
spare  hat — umbrella — two  great-coats,  one  for 
cool  and  fair  weather,  (i.  c  between  45°  and 
and  55'^  of  Fahrenheit,)  and  another  for  cold 
and  foul  weather,  of  broadcloth,  lined  with  fur, 
and  denominated  a  "dreadnought." 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  articles  with  which 
every  sensible  traveller  will  provide  himself 
before  leaving  Dnlcc  Vmiunn  to  brave  the  pe- 
rils of  a  Tour  through  the  Hop-districts. 

"  If  circumstances  compel  you,"  continues 
the  Doctor,  "to  ride  on  the  outside  of  a  coach, 
put  on  two  shirts  and  two  pair  of  stockings, 
turn  up  the  collar  of  your  great-coat,  and  tie  a 
handkerchief  round  it,  and  have  plenty  of  dry 
.straw  to  set  your  feet  on." 

In  our  younger  days  we  used  to  ride  a  pretty 
considerable  deal  on  the  outside  of  coaches,  and 
much  hardship  did  we  endure  before  we  hit  on 
the  discovery  above  promulgated.  Wc  once 
rode  outside  from  Edinburgh  to  London,  in 
winter  without  a  great-coat,  in  nankeen  trou- 
sers snns  drawers,  and  all  other  articles  of  our 
dress  thin  and  light  in  proportion.  That  we 
are  alive  at  this  day,  is  no  less  singular  than 
true — no  more  true  than  singular.  We  have 
known  ourselves  so  firmly  frozen  to  the  lea- 
thern ceiling  of  the  mail-coach,  that  it  required 
the  united  strength  of  coachman,  guard,  and 
the  other  three  outsides,  to  separate  us  from 
the  vehicle,  to  which  we  adhered  as  part  and 
parcel.  All  at  once  the  device  of  the  double 
shirt  flashed  upon  us — and  it  underwent  signal 
improvements  before  we  reduced  the  theory  to 
practice.  For,  first,  we  endued  ourselves  with 
a  leather  shirt — then  with  a  flannel  one — and 
then,  in  regular  succession,  with  three  linen 
shirts.  This  concluded  the  Series  of  Shirts. 
Then  commenced  the  waistcoats.  A  plain 
woollen  waistcoat  without  buttons — with  hooks 
and  eyes — took  the  lead,  and  kept  it ;  it  was 
cIoscl>  pressed  by  what  is,  in  common  pala- 
ver, called  an  under-waistcoat — the  body  being 
llannel,  the  breast-edges  bearing  a  pretty  pal- 
tern  of  stripes  or  bars — then  came  a  natty  red 
waistcoat,   of   which   we    were    particularly 


proud,  and  of  which  the  effect  on  landlady, 
bar-maid,  and  chamber-maid,  we  remember 
was  irresistible — and,  fourthly  and  finally,  lo 
complete  that  department  of  our  investiture, 
shone  with  soft  yet  sprightly  lustre — the  dou- 
ble-breasted bright-buttoned  Buff.  Five  and 
four  are  nine — so  that  between  our  carcass  and 
our  coat,  it  might  have  been  classically  said  of 
our  dress — "  Novies  interfusa  coercet."  At  this 
juncture  of  aflairs  began  the  coats,  which,  as 
it  is  a  great  mistake  to  wear  too  many  coats — 
never  exceeded  six.  The  first  used  generally 
to  be  a  pretty  old  coat  that  had  lived  to  moral- 
ize over  the  mutability  of  human  affairs — 
threadbare — napless — and  what  ignorant  peo- 
ple might  have  called  shabby-genteel.  It  was 
followed  by  a  plain,  sensible,  honest,  unpre- 
tending, common-place,  every  day  sort  of  a 
coat — and  not,  perhaps,  of  the  very  best  meri- 
no. Over  it  was  drawn,  with  some  little  diffi- 
culty, what  had,  in  its  prime  of  life,  attracted 
universal  admiration  in  Prince's  Street,  as  a 
blue  suriout.  Then  came  your  regular  olive- 
coloured  great-coal — not  braided  and  embroi- 
dered a  lit  imlihiire — for  we  scorned  to  sham 
travelling-captain — but  simphx  munditiis,  plain 
in  its  neatness;  not  wanting  then  was  your 
shag-hued  wraprascal,  betokening  that  its 
wearer  was  up  to  snafl" — and  to  close  this 
strange  eventful  histoiy,  the  seven-caped 
Dread-nought,  that  loved  to  dally  with  the  sleets 
and  snows — held  in  calm  contempt  Boreas, 
Notus,  Auster,  Eurus,  and  "the  rest" — and 
drove  bafllcd  Winter  howling  behind  the  Pole. 

The  same  principle  of  accumulation  was 
made  applicable  to  the  neck.  No  stock.'  Neck- 
cloth above  neckcloth — beginning  with  singles 
— and  then  getting  into  the  full  uncut  squares 
— the  amount  of  the  whole  being  somewhere 
about  a  dozen.  The  concluding  neckcloth 
worn  cravat-fashion,  and  flowing  down  the 
breast  in  a  cascade,  like  that  of  an  attorney- 
general.  Round  our  cheek  and  ear,  leaving 
the  lips  at  liberty  to  breathe  and  imbibe,  was 
wreathed,  in  undying  remembrance  of  the 
bravest  of  the  brave,  a  Jem  Belcher  fogle  — 
and  beneath  the  cravat-cascade  a  comforter 
netted  by  the  fair  hands  of  her  who  had  kissed 
us  at  our  departure,  and  was  sighing  for  our 
return.  One  hat  we  always  found  sufficient — 
and  that  a  black  beaver — for  a  lily  castor  suits 
not  the  knowledge-box  of  a  friend  to  "a  li- 
mited constitutional  and  hereditaiy  monarchy." 

As  to  our  lower  extremities — One  pair  only 
of  roomy  shoes — one  pair  of  stockings  of  the 
finest  lamb's-wool — another  of  common  close 
worsted,  knit  by  the  hand  of  a  Lancashire 
witch — thirdly,  Shetland  hose.  All  three  pair 
reaching  well  up  towards  the  fork — each  about 
an  inch-and-a-half  longer  than  its  predecessor. 
Flannel  drawers — one  pair  only — within  the 
lamb's-wool.  and  touching  the  instep — then  one 
pair  of  elderly  cassimeres,  of  yore  worn  at 
balls — one  pair  of  Manchester  white  cords — 
ditto  of  strong  black  quilt  trousers,  "  capacious 
and  serene" — and  at  or  beneath  the  freezing 
poitit,  overalls  of  the  same  stuff  as  "Johnny's 
gray  breeks" — neat  but  not  gaudy — mud-repel- 
lers  —  themselves  a  host  —  never  in  all  their 
lives  "  thoroughly  wet  through" — frost-proof — 
and   often  mistaken  by  the  shepherd  on  the 


DR.  KITCHINER. 


^5 


wold,  as  the  Telegraph  hung  for  a  moment  on 
the  misty  upland,  for  the  philibeg  of  Phoebus 
in  his  dawn-dress,  hastily  slipt  ou  as  he  bade 
farewell  to  some  star-paramour,  and,  like  a 
giant  about  to  run  a  race,  devoured  the  ceru- 
lean course  of  day,  as  if  impatient  to  reach 
the  goal  set  in  the  Western  Sea. 


FOURTH  COURSE. 

Prat,  reader,  do  you  know  what  line  of 
conduct  you  ought  to  pursue  if  you  are  to 
sleep  on  the  road  1  "  The  earlier  you  arrive," 
says  the  Doctor,  "and  the  earlier  after  your 
arrival  you  apply,  the  better  the  chance  of 
getting  a  good  bed — this  done,  order  your  lug- 
gage to  your  room.  A  travelling-bag,  or  a  '  sac 
de  nuit,'  in  addition  to  your  trunk,  is  very  ne- 
cessary ;  it  should  be  large  enough  to  contain 
one  or  two  changes  of  linen — a  night-shirt — 
shaving  apparatus — comb,  clothes,  tooth  and 
hair  brushes,  &c.  Take  care,  too,  to  see  3'our 
sheets  well  aired,  and  that  you  can  fasten  your 
room  at  night.  Carry  fire-arms  also,  and  take 
the  first  unostentatious  opportunity  of  showing 
}'our  pistols  to  the  landlord.  However  well- 
made  your  pistols,  however  carefull}^  you  liave 
chosen  your  flint,  and  however  dry  your  pow- 
der, look  to  the  priming  and  touch-hole  every 
night.  Let  your  pistols  be  double-barrelled, 
and  with  spring  bayonets." 

Now,  really,  it  appears  to  us,  that  in  lieu  of 
double-barrelled  pistols  with  spring  bayonets, 
it  would  be  advisable  to  substitute  a  brace  of 
black-puddings  for  daylight,  and  a  brace  of 
Oxford  or  Bologna  sausages  for  the  dark  hours. 
They  will  be  equally  formidable  to  the  robber, 
and  far  safer  to  yourself.  Indeed  we  should 
like  to  see  duelling  black-puddings,  pr  sausages, 
introduced  at  Chalk-Farm ; — and,  that  etiquette 
might  not  be  violated,  each  party  might  take 
his  antagonist's  weapon,  and  the  seconds,  as 
usual,  see  them  loaded.  Surgeons  will  have 
to  attend  as  usual.  Far  more  blood,  indeed, 
would  be  thus  spilt,  than  according  to  the  pre- 
sent fashion. 

The  Doctor,  as  might  be  expected,  makes  a 
mighty  rout — a  prodigious  fuss — all  through 
the  Oracle,  about  damp  sheets  ; — he  must  im- 
mediately see  the  chamber-maid,  and  overlook 
the  airing  with  his  own  hands  and  eyes.  He 
is  also  an  advocate  of  the  warming-pan — and 
for  the  adoption,  indeed,  of  every  imaginable 
scheme  for  excluding  death  from  his  chamber. 
He  goes  on  the  basis  of  every  thing  being  as 
it  should  not  be  in  inns — and  often  reminds  us 
or  our  old  friend  Death-in-the-Pot.  Nay,  as 
Travellers  never  can  be  sure  that  those  who 
have  slept  in  the  beds  before  them  were  not 
afflicted  with  some  contagious  disease,  when- 
ever they  can  they  should  carry  their  own 
sheets  with  them — namely,  a  "  light  eider-down 
quilt,  and  two  dressed  hart  skins,  to  be  put  on 
the  mattrasses,  to  hinder  the  disagreeable  con- 
tact. These  are  to  be  covered  with  the  travel- 
ler's own  sheets — and  if  an  eider-down  quilt 
.  be  not  sufficient  to  keep  him  warm,  his  coat 
put  upon  it  will  increase  the  heat  sufficiently. 
If  the   traveller   is   not  provided  with   these 


accommodations,  it  will  sometimes  be  prudent 
not  to  undress  entirely;  however,  the  neck- 
cloth, gaiters,  shirt,  and  every  thing  which 
checks  the  circulation,  must  be  loosened." 

Clean  sheets,  the  Doctor  thinks,  are  rare  in 
inns;  and  he  believes  that  it  is  the  practice  to 
"take  them  from  the  bed,  sprinkle  them  with 
water,  fold  them  down,  and  put  them  into  a 
press.  When  they  are  wanted  again,  they  are, 
literally  speaking,  shown  to  the  fire,  and,  in  a 
reeking  state,  laid  on  the  bed.  The  traveller 
is  tired  and  sleepy,  dreams  of  that  pleasure  or 
business  which  brought  him  from  home,  and 
the  remotest  thing  from  his  mind  is,  that  from 
the  very  repose  which  he  fancies  has  refreshed 
him,  he  has  received  the  rheumatism.  The 
receipt,  therefore,  to  sleep  comfortably  at  inns, 
is  to  take  your  own  sheets,  to  have  plenty  of 
flannel  gowns,  and  to  promise,  and  take  care  to 
pay,  a  handsome  consideration  for  the  liberty 
of  choosing  your  bed." 

Now,  Doctor,  suppose  all  travellers  behaved 
at  inns  upon  such  principles,  what  a  perpetual 
commotion  there  would  be  in  the  house!  The 
kitchens,  back-kitchens,  laundries,  drying- 
rooms,  would  at  all  times  be  crammed  choke- 
full  of  a  miscellaneous  rabble  of  Editors,  Au- 
thors, Lords,  Baronets,  Squires,  Doctors  of 
Divinity,  Fellows  of  Colleges,  Half-pay  Of- 
ficers, and  Bagmen,  oppressing  the  chamber- 
maids to  death,  and  in  the  headlong  gratifica- 
tion of  their  passion  for  well-aired  sheets,  set- 
ting fire  so  incessantly  to  public  premises  as 
to  raise  the  rate  of  insurance  to  a  ruinous 
height,  and  thus  bring  bankruptcy  on  all  the 
principal  establishments  in  Great  Britain. 
But  shutting  our  eyes,  for  a  moment,  to  such 
general  conflagration  and  bankruptcy,  and  in- 
dulging ourselves  in  the  violent  supposition 
that  some  inns  might  still  continue  to  exist, 
think,  0  think,  worthy  Doctor,  to  what  other 
fatal  results  this  system,  if  universally  acted 
upon,  would,  in  a  very  few  years  of  the  transi- 
tory life  of  man,  inevitably  lead!  In  the  first 
place,  in  a  country  where  all  travellers  carried 
with  them  their  own  sheets,  none  would  be 
kept  in  inns  except  for  the  use  of  the  esta- 
blishment's own  members.  This  would  be 
inflicting  a  vital  blow,  indeed,  on  the  inns  of  a 
country.  For  mark,  in  the  second  place,  that 
the  blankets  would  not  be  long  of  following  the 
sheets.  The  blankets  would  soon  fly  after  the 
sheets  on  the  wings  of  love  and  despair. 
Thirdly,  are  you  so  ignorant.  Doctor,  of  this 
world  and  its  ways,  as  not  to  see  that  the  bed- 
steads would,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  fol- 
low the  blankets  1  What  a  wild,  desolate, 
wintry  appearance  would  a  bed-room  then  ex- 
hibit! 

The  foresight  of  such  consequences  as  these 
may  well  make  a  man  shudder.  We  have  no 
objections,  however,  to  suffer  the  Doctor  him- 
self, and  a  few  other  occasional  damp-dreading 
old  quizzes,  "to  see  the  bed-clothes  put  to  the 
fire  in  their  presence,"  merely  at  the  expense 
of  subjugating  themselves  to  the  derision  of 
all  the  chambermaids,  cooks,  scullions,  boots, 
ostlers,  and  painters.  (The  painter  is  the  art- 
ist who  is  employed  in  inns  to  paint  the  but- 
tered toast.  He  always  works  in  oils.  As  the 
Director  General  would  say— he  deals  in  bui 
X  2 


246 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


tery  touches.)  Their  feverish  and  restless 
anxiety  about  sheets,  and  their  agitated  dis- 
course on  damps  and  deaths,  hold  them  up  to 
vulgar  eyes  in  the  light  of  lunatics.  They  be- 
come the  groundwork  of  practical  jokes — per- 
haps are  bitten  to  death  by  fleas ;  for  a  cham- 
bermaid, of  a  disposition  naturally  witty  and 
cruel,  has  a  dangerous  power  put  into  her 
hands,  in  the  charge  of  blankets.  The  Doctor's 
whole  soul  and  body  are  wrapt  up  in  well-aired 
sheets;  but  the  insidious  Abigail,  tormented  by 
his  flustering,  becomes  in  turn  the  tormentor — 
and  selecting  the  yellowest,  dingiest,  and  dir- 
tiest pair  of  blankets  to  be  found  throughout  the 
whole  gallery  of  garrets,  (those  for  years  past 
■used  by  long-bearded  old-clothesmen  Jews,) 
with  a  wicked  leer  that  would  lull  all  suspi- 
cion asleep  in  a  man  of  a  far  less  inflammable 
temperament,  she  literally  envelopes  him  in 
vermin,  and  after  a  night  of  one  of  the  plagues 
of  Egypt,  the  Doctor  rises  in  the  morning,  from 
top  to  bottom  absolutely  tattooed! 

The  Doctor,  of  course,  is  one  of  those  tra- 
vellers who  believe,  that  unless  they  use  the 
most  ingenious  precautions,  they  will  be  uni- 
formly robbed  and  murdered  in  inns.  The 
villains  steal  upon  jou  during  the  midnight 
hour,  when  all  the  world  is  asleep.  They 
leave  their  shoes  down  stairs,  and  leopard-like, 
ascend  with  velvet,or — what  is  almost  as  noise- 
less— worsted  steps,  the  wooden  stairs.  True, 
that  your  breeches  are  beneath  your  bolster — 
but  that  trick  of  travellers  has  long  been  "as 
notorious  as  the  sun  at  noonday ;"  and  although 
you  are  aware  of  your  breeches,  with  all  the 
ready  money  perliaps  that  you  are  worth  in  this 
world,  eloping  from  beneath  your  parental  eye, 
you  in  vain  try  to  cry  out — for  a  long,  broad, 
iron  hand,  with  ever  so  many  iron  fingers,  is 
on  your  inouth  ;  another,  with  still  more  nume- 
rous digits,  compresses  your  windpipe,  while  a 
low  hoarse  voice,  in  a  whisper  to  which  Sarah 
Siddons's  was  empij'  air,  on  pain  of  insiant 
death  enforces  silence  from  a  man  unable  for 
his  life  to  utter  a  single  word;  and  afier  pull- 
ing off  all  the  bed-clothes,  and  then  clothing 
you  with  curses,  the  rufiians,  whose  accent 
betrays  them  to  be  Irishmen,  inflict  upon  you 
divers  wanton  wounds  with  a  blunt  instrument, 
probably  a  crow-bar — swearing  by  Satan  and 
all  his  saints,  that  if  you  stir  an  inch  of  your 
body  before  daybreak,  they  will  instantly  re- 
turn, cut  your  throat,  knock  out  your  brains, 
sack  you,  and  carry  you  off  for  sale  to  a  sur- 
geon. Therefore  you  must  use  pocket  door- 
bolls,  which  are  applicable  to  almost  all  sorts 
of  doors,  and  on  many  occasions  save  the  pro- 
perly and  life  of  the  traveller.  The  corkscrew 
door-fastening  the  Doctor  recommends  as  the 
simplest.  This  is  screwed  in  between  the 
door  and  the  door-post,  and  unites  them  so 
firmly,  that  great  power  is  required  to  force  a 
door  so  fastened.  They  are  as  portable  as 
common  corkscrews,  and  their  weight  does 
not  exceed  an  ounce  and  a  half.  The  safety 
ol  )'our  bed-room  stiould  alv.-ays  be  carefully 
examined;  and  in  case  of  bolts  not  being  at 
liand,  it  will  be  useful  to  hinder  entrance  into 
the  room  by  putting  a  table  and  a  chair  upon 
it  against  the  door.  Take  a  peep  below  the 
bed,   and   into   the   closets,   and   every  place 


[  where  concealment  is  possible — of  course,  al- 
i  though  the  Doctor  forgets  to  suggest  it,  into  the 
i  chimney.  A  friend  of  the  Doctor's  used  to 
I  place  a  bureau  against  the  door,  and  "thereon 
]  he  set  a  basin  and  ewer  in  such  a  position  as 
;  easily  to  rattle,  so  that,  on  being  shook,  they 
j  instantly  became  rnolto  ai^ituio."  Upon  one 
alarming  occasion  this  device  frightened  away 
one  of  the  chambermaids,  or  some  other  Pau- 
I  lina  Pry,  who  attempted  to  steal  on  the  virgin 
sleep  of  the  travelling  Joseph,  who  all  the  time 
was  hiding  his  head  beneath  the  bolster.  Jo- 
seph, however,  believed  it  was  a  horrible  mid- 
night assassin,  with  mustaches  and  a  dagger. 
"The  chattering  of  the  crockery  gave  the 
alarm,  and  the  attempt,  after  many  attempts, 
was  abandoned." 

With  all  these  fearful  apprehensions  in  his 
mjnd.  Dr.  Kilchiner  must  have  been  a  man  of 
great  natural  personal  courage  and  intrepidity, 
to  have  slept  even  once  in  his  whole  lifetime 
from  home.  What  dangers  must  we  have 
passed,  who  used  to  plumpin,  without  a  thought 
of  damp  in  the  bed,  or  scamp  below  it — closet 
and  chimney  uninspected,  door  unbolted  and 
unscrewed,  exposed  to  rape,  robber)',  and  mur- 
der !  It  is  mortifying  to  think  that  we  should  be 
alive  at  this  day-  Nobody,  male  or  female, 
thought  it  worth  their  while  to  rob,  ravish,  or 
murder  us !  There  we  ky,  forgotten  by  the 
whole  world — till  the  crowing  of  cocks,  or  the 
ringing  of  bells,  or  blundering  Boots  insist- 
ing on  it  that  we  were  a  .Manchester  Bagman, 
who  had  taken  an  inside  in  the  Heavj-  at  five, 
broke  our  repose,  and  Sol  laughing  in  at  the 
unshuttered  and  uncurtained  window  showed 
us  the  floor  of  our  dormitory,  not  streaming 
with  a  gore  of  blood.  We  really  know  not 
whether  to  be  most  proud  of  having  been  the 
favourite  child  of  Fortune,  or  the  neglected 
brat  of  Fate.  One  only  precaution  did  we  ever 
use  to  take  against  assassination,  and  all  the 
other  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to,  sleep  where  one 
may,  and  that  was  to  say  inwardly  a  short  fer- 
vent prayer,  humbly  thanking  our  Maker  for 
all  the  happiness — let  us  trust  it  was  innocent 
— of  the  day  ;  and  humbly  imploring  his  bless- 
ing on  all  the  hopes  of  to-morrow.  For,  at  the 
time  we  speak  of  we  were  young — and  every 
morning,  whatever  the  atmosphere  might  be, 
rose  bright  and  beautiful  with  hopes  that,  far 
as  the  eyes  of  the  soul  could  reach,  glittered 
on  earth's,  and  heaven's,  and  life's  horizon  ! 

But  suppose  that  after  all  this  trouble  to  get 
himself  bolted  and  screwed  into  a  paradisaical 
tabernacle  of  a  dormitory,  there  had  suddenly 
rung  through  the  housethecry  of  FinE — Firf. — 
Fiiie!  how  wasDr.Kitchinertogctout  T  Tables, 
bureaus,  benches,  chairs,  blocked  up  the  only 
door — all  laden  with  wash-hand  basins  and 
other  utensils,  the  whole  crockery  shepherd- 
esses of  tlie  chimney-piece,  double-barrelled 
pistols  with  spring  bayonets  ready  to  shoot  and 
stab,  without  distinction  of  persons,  as  their 
proprietor  was  madly  seeking  to  escape  the 
roaring  flames  !  Both  windows  are  iron-bound, 
with  all  their  shutters,  and  over  and  above 
tightly  fastened  with  "  the  corkscrew-fasten- 
ing, the  simplest  that  we  have  seen."  The 
wind-board  is  in  like  manner,  and  by  the  same 
unhappy  contrivance,  firmly  jammed  into  the 


DR.  KITCHINER. 


247 


jaws  of  the  chimney,  so  egress  to  the  Doctor 
up  the  vent  is  wholly  denied — no  fire-engine 
in  the  town — but  one  under  repair.  There 
has  not  been  a  drop  of  rain  for  a  month,  and 
the  river  is  not  only  distant  but  dr}\  The 
element  is  growling  along  the  galleries  like 
a  lion,  and  the  room  is  filling  with  something 
more  deadly  than  back-smoke.  A  !>hrill  voice 
is  heard  crying — "Number  5  will  be  burned 
alive  !  Number  5  will  be  burned  alive  !  Is 
there  no  possibility  of  saving  the  life  of  Num- 
ber 5?"  The  Doctor  falls  down  before  the 
barricado,  and  is  stretched  all  his  hapless 
length  fainting  on  the  floor.  At  last  the  door 
is  burst  open,  and  landlord,  landlady,  chamber- 
maid, and  boots — each  in  a  different  ke}- — 
from  manly  bass  to  childish  treble,  demand  of 
Number  5  if  he  be  a  murderer  or  a  madman — 
for,  gentle  reader,  it  has  been  a Dream. 

We  must  hurr}'  to  a  close,  and  shall  per- 
form the  short  remainder  of  our  journe}-  on 
foot.  The  first  volume  of  the  Oracle  concludes 
with  "  Observations  on  Pedestrians."  Here 
we  are  at  home — and  could,  we  imagine,  have 
given  the  Doctor  a  mile  in  the  hour  in  a  year- 
match.  The  strength  of  man,  we  are  given 
distinctly  to  understand  by  the  Doctor,  is  "in 
the  ratio  of  the  performance  of  the  restorative 
process,  which  is  as  the  quantity  and  quality 
of  what  he  puts  into  his  stomach,  the  energy 
of  that  organ,  and  the  quantity  of  exercise  lie 
takes."  This  statement  of  the  strength  of  man 
may  be  unexceptionably  true,  and  most  philo- 
sophical to  those  who  are  up  to  it — but  to  us  it 
resembles  a  definition  we  have  heard  of  thun- 
der, "  the  conjection  of  the  sulphur  congeals 
the  matter."  It  appears  to  us  that  a  strong 
stomach  is  not  the  sole  constituent  of  a  strong 
man — but  that  it  is  not  much  amiss  to  be  pro- 
vided with  a  strong  back,  a  strong  breast, strong 
thighs,  strong  legs,  and  strong  feet.  With 
a  strong  stomach  alone — yea,  even  the  stomach 
of  a  horse — a  man  will  make  but  a  sorry  Pe- 
destrian. The  Doctor,  however,  speedily  re- 
deems himself  by  saying  admirably  well,  "  that 
nutrition  does  not  depend  more  on  the  state 
of  the  stomach,  or  of  what  we  put  into  it,  than 
it  does  on  the  stimulus  given  to  the  system  by 
exercise,  which  alone  can  produce  that  perfect 
circulation  of  the  blood  which  is  required  to 
throw  off  superfluous  secretions,  and  give  the 
absorbents  an  appetite  to  suck  up  fresh  ma- 
terials. This  requires  the  action  of  every 
petty  artery,  and  of  the  minutest  ramifications 
of  every  nerve  and  fibre  in  our  body."  Thus, 
he  remarks,  a  little  further  on,  by  way  of  illus- 
tration, "  that  a  man  suffering  under  a  fit  of  the 
vapours,  after  half  an  hour's  brisk  ambulation, 
■will  often  find  that  he  has  walked  it  off,  and  that 
the  action  of  the  body  has  exonerated  the  mind." 

The  Doctor  warms  as  he  walks — and  is  very 
near  leaping  over  the  fence  of  Political  Eco- 
nomy. "Providence,  he  remarks,  furnishes 
materials,  but  expects  that  we  should  work 
them  up  for  ourselves.  The  earth  must  be 
laboured  before  it  gives  its  increase,  and  when 
it  is  forced  to  produce  its  several  products. 
how  many  hands  must  they  pass  through  be- 
fore they  are  fit  for  use !  Manufactures,  trade, 
and  agriculture,  naturally  employ  more  than 
nineteen   persons  out  of  twentj';  and  as   for 


those  who  are,  b)'  the  condition  in  wnich  they 
are  born,  exempted  from  work,  they  are  more 
miserable  than  the  rest  of  mankind,  unless 
they  daily  and  duly  employ  themselves  in  that 
voluxtaut  labour  which  goes  by  the  name 
OF  EXERCISE."  Inflexible  justice,  however, 
forces  us  to  say,  that  although  the  Doctor 
throws  a  fine  philosophical  light  over  the  most 
general  principles  of  walking,  as  they  are  in- 
volved in  "  that  voluntary  labour  which  goes 
by  the  name  of  exercise,"  yet  he  falls  into  fre- 
quent and  fatal  error  when  he  descends  into 
the  particulars  of  the  practice  of  pedestrianism. 
Thus,  he  says  that  no  person  should  sit  down 
to  a  hearty  meal  immediately  after  any  great 
exertion,  either  of  mind  or  body — that  is,  one 
might  say,  after  a  few  miles  of  Plinlimnon,  or 
a  few  pages  of  the  Principia.  Let  the  man, 
quoth  he,  "  who  comes  home  fatigued  by  bodily 
exertion,  especially  if  he  feel  heated  by  it,  throw 
his  legs  upon  a  chair,  and  remain  quite  tran- 
quil and  composed,  that  the  energy  which  has 
been  dispersed  to  the  extremities  may  have 
time  to  return  to  the  stomach,  when  it  is  re- 
quired." To  all  this  we  saj- — Fudge!  The 
sooner  you  get  hold  of  a  leg  of  roasted  mutton 
the  better ;  but  meanwhile,  ofl' rapidly  with  a  pot 
of  porter — then  leisurely  on  with  a  clean  shirt 
— wash  your  face  and  hands  in  gelid — none  of 
your  tepid  water.  There  is  no  harm  done  if 
you  should  shave — then  keep  walking  up  and 
down  the  parlour  rather  impatiently,  for  such 
conduct  is  natural,  and  in  all  things  act  agree- 
ably to  nature — stir  up  the  waiter  with  some 
original  jest  by  way  of  stimulant,  and  to  give 
the  knave's  face  a  well-pleased  stare — and 
never  doubting  "that  the  energy  which  has 
been  dispersed  to  the  extremities"  has  had 
ample  time  to  return  to  the  stomach,  in  God's 
name  fall  to !  and  take  care  that  the  second 
course  shall  not  appear  till  there  is  no  vestige 
left  of  the  first — a  second  course  being  looked 
on  by  the  judicious  moralist  and  pedestrian 
very  much  in  the  light  in  which  the  poet  has 
made  a  celebrated  character  consider  it — 
"  Nor  fame  I  slieht— nor  for  her  favours  call — 
She  comes  unlook'd  fur — if  she  comes  at  all." 

To  prove  how  astonishingly  our  strength 
may  be  diminished  by  indolence,  the  Doctor 
tells  us,  that  meeting  a  gentleman  who  had 
lately  returned  from  India,  to  his  inquiry  after 
his  health  he  replied,  "Why,  better — better, 
thank  ye— I  think  I  begin  to  feel  some  symp- 
toms of  the  return  of  a  little  English  energy. 
Do  you  know  that  the  day  before  yesterday  I 
was  in  such  high  spirits,  and  felt  so  strong,  I 
actually  put  on  one  of  my  stockings  myself!" 

The  Doctor  then  asserts,  that  it  "has  been 
repeatedly  proved  that  a  man  can  travel  further 
for  a  week  or  a  month  than  a  horse."  On  read- 
ing this  sentence  to  Will  Whipcord — "Ves, 
sir,"  replied  that  renowned  Professor  of  the 
Newmarket  Philosophy,  "that's  all  right,  sir 
— a  man  can  beat  a  horse  !" 

Now,  Will  Whipcord  may  be  right  in  his 
opinion,  and  a  man  may  beat  a  horse.  But  it 
never  has  been  ti-ied:  There  is  no  match  of 
pedestrianism  on  record  between  a  first-rate 
man  and  a  first-rate  horse;  and  as  soon  as 
there  is,  we  shall  lay  our  money  on  the  horse 
— only  mind,  the  horse  carries  no  weight,  and 


248 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


he  must  be  allowed  to  do  his  work  on  turf. 
We  know  that  Arab  horses  will  carry  their 
rider,  provision  and  provender,  arms  and  ac- 
coutrements, (no  light  weight,)  across  the  de- 
sert, eighty  miles  a-day,  for  many  days — and 
that  for  four  days  they  have  gone  a  hundred 
miles  a-day.  That  would  have  puzzled  Cap- 
tain Barclay  in  his  prime,  the  Prince  of  Pe- 
destrians. However,  be  that  as  it  may,  the 
Comparative  pedestrian  powers  of  man  and 
horse  have  never  yet  been  ascertained  by  any 
accredited  match  in  England. 

The  Doctor  then  quotes  an  extract  from  a 
Pedestrian  Tour  in  Wales  by  a  Mr.  Shepherd, 
who,  we  are  afraid,  is  no  great  headpiece, 
though  we  shall  be  happy  to  find  ourselves  in 
error.  Mr.  Shepherd,  speaking  of  the  incon- 
veniencies  and  difhculiies  attending  a  pedes- 
trian excursion,  says,  "  that  at  one  time  the 
roads  are  rendered  so  muddy  by  the  rain,  that 
it  is  almost  impossible  to  proceed  ;" — "  at  other 
times  you  are  exposed  to  the  inclemency  of  the 
weatlier,  and  by  wasting  time  under  a  tree  or 
a  hedge  are  benighted  in  your  journey,  and 
again  reduced  to  an  uncomfortable  dilemma." 
"Another  disadvantage  is,  that  your  track  is 
necessarily  more  confined — a  deviation  of  ten 
or  twelve  miles  makes  an  important  difference, 
which,  if  you  were  on  horseback,  would  be 
considered  as  trivial."  "Under  all  these  cir- 
cumstances," he  says,  "  it  may  appear  rather 
ninarkalile  that  we  should  have  cho>en  a  pe- 
destrian excursion — in  ansirtr  to  irliiih,  it  imiij 
lie  (ilixviTtil,  that  trc  were  not  apprized  of  these  thini:it 
lilt  irc  IkiiI  experieneeil  llietii."  What!  Mr.  Shep- 
herd, were  you,  who  we  presume  have  reached 
the  age  of  juiberty,  not  apprized,  lefore  you 
penetrated  as  a  jiedestrian  into  the  Principality, 
that  "  roads  are  rendered  muddy  by  the  rain  V 
Had  )ou  never  met.  either  in  your  experience 
of  life,  or  in  the  course  of  your  reading,  proof 
positive  that  pede.slrians  "arc  exposed  to  ihe 
inclemeiicy  of  Ihe  weather?"  That,  if  a  man 
will  linger  too  long  under  a  tree  or  a  hedge 
when  the  sun  is  going  down,  "he  will  be  be- 
nighted !"  Under  what  serene  atmosphere,  in 
what  happy  clime,  have  you  pursued  your 
preparatory  studies  sub  elio?  But,  our  dear 
Mr.  Shepherd,  why  waste  time  under  the  shel- 
ter of  a  tree  or  a  hedge  ?  Waste  time  nowhere, 
our  young  and  unknown  friend.  What  the 
worse  would  you  have  been  of  being  soaked  to 
the  skin  ?  13esides,  consider  the  danger  you 
ran  of  being  killed  by  lightning,  had  there  been 
a  iew  Ilashes,  under  a  tree  ?  Further,  what 
will  become  of  you,  if  you  addict  yourself  on 
every  small  emergency  to  trees  and  hedges, 
when  the  country  you  walk  through  happens 
to  be  as  bare  as  ihe  palm  of  your  hand  ?  But- 
ton your  jacket,  good  sir — scorn  an  umbrella 
— 'emerge  boldly  from  the  silvan  shade,  snap 
your  fing(>rs  at  the  pitiful  pelting  of  the  pitiless 
storm — poor  spite  indeed  in  iJensissimus  Im- 
lier — and  we  will  insure  your  life  for  a  pre- 
senta*'on  copy  of  your  Tour  against  all  the 
diseases  that  leapt  out  of  Pandora's  box,  not 
(inly  till  you  have  reached  the  Inn  at  Capel- 
Cerig,  but  your  own  home  in  England,  (we 
liirget  the  county,) — ay,  till  your  marriage,  and 
the  baptism  of  your  first-born. 

Pr.  Kitchiner   seems   to   have  been   mucb 


frightened  by  Mr.  Shepherd's  picture  of  a  storm 
in  a  puddle,  and  proposes  a  plan  of  alleviation 
of  one  great  inconvenience  of  pedestrianizing. 
"Persons,"  quoth  he,  "who  take  a  pedestrian 
excursion,  and  intend  to  subject  themselves  to 
the  uncertainties  of  accommodation,  by  going 
across  the  countiy  and  visiting  unfrequented 
paths,  will  act  wisely  to  carry  with  them  a 
piece  of  oil-skin  tO  sit  upon  while  taking  re- 
freshments out  of  doors,  which  they  will  often 
find  needful  during  such  excursions."  To  save 
trouble,  the  breech  of  the  pedestrian's  breeches 
should  be  a  patch  of  oil-skin.  Here  a  question 
of  great  dilliculty  and  importance  arises — 
Breeches  or  trousers?  Dr.  Kitchiner  is  de- 
cidedly for  breeches.  "The  garter,"  says  he, 
"should  be  below  the  knee,  and  breeches  are 
much  better  than  trowsers.  The  general  adop- 
tion of  those  which,  till  our  late  wars,  were  ex- 
clusively used  by  'the  Lords  of  the  Ocean,' 
has  often  excited  mj*  astonishment.  However 
convenient  trousers  may  be  to  the  sailor  who 
has  to  cling  to  slippery  shrouds,  for  the  lands- 
man nothing  can  be  more  inconvenient.  They 
are  heating  in  summer,  and  in  winter  the}-  are 
collectors  of  mud.  Moreover,  they  occasion  a 
necessity  for  wearing  garters.  Breeches  are, 
in  all  respects,  much  more  convenient.  These 
should  have  the  knee-band  three  quarters  of 
an  inch  wide,  lined  on  the  upper  side  with  a 
piece  of  plush,  and  fastened  with  a  buckle, 
which  is  much  easier  than  even  double  strings, 
and,  by  observing  the  strap,  you  always  know 
the  exact  degree  of  tightness  thai  is  required 
to  keep  up  the  stocking;  any  pressure  beyond 
that  is  prejudicial,  e.specialiy  to  those  who 
walk  long  distances." 

We  are  strongly  inclined  to  agree  with  the 
Doctor  in  his  panegyric  on  breeches.  True, 
that  in  the  forenoons,  especially  if  of  a  dark 
colour,  such  as  black,  and  worn  with  white,  or 
even  gray  or  bluish,  stockings,  they  are  apt,  in 
the  present  stale  of  public  taste,  to  stamp  you 
a  schoolmaster,  or  a  small  grocer  in  full  dress, 
or  an  exciseman  going  lo  a  ball.  We  could 
dispense  too  with  the  knee-buckles  and  plush 
lining  —  though  we  allow  the  one  might  be 
ornamental,  and  the  other  useful.  But  what 
think  you,  gentle  reader,  of  walking  with  a 
Pedomeler  ?  A  Pedometer  is  an  instrument 
cunningly  devised  to  tell  you  how  far  and  how 
fast  you  walk,  and  is,  quoth  Ihe  Doctor,  a 
"  perambulator  in  miniature."  The  box  con- 
taining the  wheels  is  made  of  the  size  of  a 
watch-case,  and  goes  into  the  breeches-pocket, 
and  by  means  of  a  string  and  hook,  fastened 
at  the  waistband  or  at  the  knee,  the  number 
of  steps  a  man  takes,  in  his  regular  paces,  are 
registered  from  the  action  of  the  string  upon 
the  internal  wheel  work  at  every  step,  to  the 
amount  of  30,000.  It  is  necessarj'  to  ascertain 
the  distance  walked,  that  the  averapc  length 
of  one  pace  be  precisely  known,  and  that  mul- 
tiplied liy  the  number  of  steps  registered  en 
the  dial-plate. 

All  this  is  very  ingenious;  and  we  know 
one  tolerable  pedestrian  who  is  also  a  Pedome- 
trist.  But  no  Pedometrician  will  ever  make  a 
fortune  in  a  mountainous  island,  like  Great 
Britain,  where  pedeslrianism  is  indigenous  to 
the  soil.     A  good  walker  is  as  regular  in  his 


SOLILOQUY  ON  THE  SEASONS. 


249 


going  as  clock-work.  He  has  his  different  \ 
paces — three,  three  and  a  half — four,  four  and 
a  half — five,  five  a»d  a  half — six  miles  an  hour 
—toe  and  heel.  A  common  watch,  therefore, 
is  to  him,  in  the  absence  of  milestones,  as  good 
as  a  Pedometer — with  this  great  and  indis- 
putable advantage,  that  a  common  watch  con- 
tinues to  go  even  after  you  have  yourself 
stopped,  whereas,  the  moment  you  sit  down  on 
your  oil-skin  patch,  why,  your  Pedometer 
(which  indeed,  from  its  name  and  construction, 
is  not  unreasonable)  immediately  stands  still. 
Neither,  we  believe,  can  you  accurately  note 
the  pulse  of  a  friend  in  a  fever  by  a  Pedometer. 
What  pleasure  on  this  earth  transcends  a 
breakfast  after  a  twelve-mile  walk!  Or  is 
there  in  this  sublunary  scene  a  delight  superior 
to  the  gradual,  dying-away,  dreamy  drowsiness 
that,  at  the  close  of  a  long  summer  day's 
journey  up  hill  and  down  dale,  seals  up  the 


glimmering  eyes  with  honey-dew,  and  stretches 
out,  under  the  loving  hands  of  nourrice  Nature, 
the  whole  elongated  animal  economy,  steeped 
in  rest  divine  from  the  organ  of  veneration  to 
the  point  of  the  great  toe,  be  it  on  a  bed  of 
down,  chaff,  straw,  or  heather,  in  palace,  hall, 
hotel,  or  huti  If  in  an  inn,  nobody  interferes 
with  you  in  meddling  ofhciousness ;  neither 
landlord,  bagman,  waiter,  chambermaid,  boots ; 
— you  are  left  to  yourself  without  being  neg- 
lected. Your  bell  may  not  be  emulously 
answered  by  all  the  menials  on  the  establish- 
ment, but  a  smug  or  shock-headed  drawer 
appears  in  good  time ;  and  if  mine  host  may 
not  always  dignify  your  dinner  by  the  deposi- 
tion of  the  first  dish,  yet,  influenced  by  the 
rumour  that  soon  spreads  through  the  pre- 
mises, he  bows  farewell  at  your  departure, 
with  a  shrewd  suspicion  that  you  are  a  noble- 
man in  disguise. 


SOLILOaUY  ON  THE  SEASONS. 


FIRST  RHAPSODY. 

No  weather  more  pleasant  than  that  of  a 
mild  Winter  day.  So  gracious  the  season, 
that  Hyems  is  like  Ver — Januarius  like  Chris- 
topher North.  Art  thou  the  Sun  of  whom 
Milton  said, 

"  Looks  through  the  horizontal  misty  air. 
Shorn  of  his  beams," 

an  image  of  disconsolate  obscuration  ?  Bright 
art  thou  as  at  meridian  on  a  June  Sabbath ; 
but  effusing  a  more  temperate  lustre,  not  unfelt 
by  the  sleeping,  though  not  insensate  earth. 
She  stirs  in  her  sleep,  and  murmurs  —  the 
mighty  mother;  and  quiet  as  herself,  though 
broad  awake,  her  old  ally  the  ship-bearing  sea. 
What  though  the  woods  be  leafless — they  look 
as  alive  as  when  laden  with  umbrage ;  and 
who  can  tell  what  is  going  on  now  within  the 
heart  of  that  calm  oak  grovel  The  fields 
laugh  not  now — but  here  and  there  they  smile. 
If  we  see  no  flowers  we  think  of  them — and 
less  of  the  perished  than  of  tlie  unborn ;  for 
regret  is  vain,  and  hope  is  blest ;  in  peace 
there  is  the  promise  of  jo}' — and  therefore  in 
the  silent  pastures  a  perfect  beauty  how  re- 
storative to  man's  troubled  heart ! 

The  Shortest  Day  in  all  the  year — yet  is  it 
lovelier  than  the  Longest.  Can  that  be  the 
voice  of  birds  1  With  the  laverock's  lyric  our 
fancy  filled  the  sky — with  the  throstle's  rounde- 
lay it  awoke  the  wood.  In  the  air  life  is  audi- 
ble— circling  unseen.  Such  serenity  must  be 
inhabited  by  happiness.  Ha!  there  thou  art, 
our  Familiar — the  selfsame  Robin  Redbreast 
that  pecked  at  our  nursery  window,  and  used 
to  warble  from  the  gable  of  the  school-house 
his  sweet  winter  song ! 

In  company  we  are  silent — in  solitude  we 
soliltiquize.  So  dearly  do  we  love  our  own 
voice  that  we  cannot  bear  to  hear  it  mixed 
with  that  of  others — perhaps  drowned;  and 
ihen  our  bashfulness  tongue-ties  us  in  the  hush 
32 


expectant  of  our  "golden  opinions,"  when  all 
eyes  are  turned  to  the  speechless  "  old  man 
eloquent,"  and  3'ou  might  hear  a  tangle  dis- 
hevelling itself  in  Neccra's  hair.  But  all  alone 
by  ourselves,  in  the  country,  amongtrees,  stand- 
ing still  among  untrodden  leaves — as  now — 
how  we  do  speak  !  All  thoughts — all  feelings 
— desire  utterance  ;  left  to  themselves  they  are 
not  happy  till  they  have  evolved  into  words — 
winged  words  that  sometimes  settle  on  the 
ground,  like  moths  on  flowers — sometimes 
seek  the  sky,  like  eagles  above  the  clouds. 

No  such  soliloquies  in  written  poetry  as 
these  of  ours — the  act  of  composition  is  fatal 
as  frost  to  their  flow ;  yet  composition  there  is 
at  such  solitary  times  going  on  among  the 
moods  of  the  mind,  as  among  the  clouds  on  a 
still  but  not  airless  sky,  perpetual  but  imper- 
ceptible transformations  of  the  beautiful,  obe- 
dient to  the  bidding  of  the  spirit  of  beaut}\ 

Who  but  Him  who  made  it  knoweth  aught 
of  the  Laws  of  Spirit  1  All  of  us  may  know 
much  of  what  is  "  wisest,  virtuousest,  discreet- 
cst,  best,"  in  obedience  to  them;  but  leaving 
the  open  day,  we  enter  at  once  into  thickest 
night.  Why  at  this  moment  do  we  see  a  spot 
once  only  visited  by  us — unremembered  for 
ever  so  many  flights  of  black  or  bright  winged 
years — see  it  in  fancy  as  it  then  was  in  nature, 
with  the  same  dew-drops  on  that  wondrous 
myrtle  beheld  but  on  that  morning — such  a 
myrtle  as  no  other  eyes  beheld  ever  on  this 
earth  hut  ours,  and  the  eyes  of  one  now  in 
heaven  ? 

Another  year  is  about  to  die — and  how  wags 
the  world  T  "  What  great  events  are  on  the 
gale  ]"  Go  ask  our  statesmen.  But  their  rule 
— their  guidance  is  but  over  the  outer  world, 
and  almost  powerless  their  folly  or  their  wis 
dom  over  the  inner  region  in  which  we  mor 
tals  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being,  where 
the  fall  of  a  throne  makes  no  more  noise  than 
that  of  a  leaf ! 


250 


RECREATIONS  OF   CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


Thank  Heaven  !  Summer  and  Autumn  are 
tooth  dead  and  buried  at  last,  and  white  lies  the 
snow  on  their  graves !  Youth  is  the  season  of 
all  sorts  of  insolence,  and  therefore  we  can  for- 
give and  forget  almost  any  thing  in  Spuing. 
He  has  always  been  a  privileged  personage  ; 
and  we  have  no  doubt  that  he  played  his 
pranks  even  in  Paradise.  To-day,  he  meets 
you  unexpectedly  on  the  hill-side ;  and  was 
there  ever  a  face  in  this  world  so  celestialized 
by  smiles  !  All  the  features  are  framed  of 
light.  Gaze  into  his  eyes,  and  you  feel  that  in 
the  untroubled  lustre  there  is  something  more 
sublime  than  in  the  heights  of  the  cloudless 
heavens,  or  in  the  depths  of  the  waveless  seas. 
More  sublime,  because  essentially  spiritual. 
There  stands  the  young  Angel,  entranced  in 
the  conscious  mystery  of  his  own  beautiful 
and  blessed  being;  and  the  earth  becomes  all 
at  once  fit  region  for  the  sojourn  of  the  Son  of 
the  Morning.  So  might  some  great  painter 
image  the  First-born  of  the  Year,  till  nations 
adored  the  picture. — To-morrow  you  repair, 
with  hermit  steps,  to  the  Mount  of  the  Vision, 
and, 

"  Fierce  as  ten  furies,  terrible  as  hell," 

Spring  clutches  you  by  the  hair  with  the  fingers 
of  frost ;  blashes  a  storm  of  sleet  in  your  face, 
and  finishes,  perhaps,  by  folding  you  in  a  wind- 
ing-sheet of  snow,  in  which  you  would  infalli- 
bly perish  but  for  a  pocket-pistol  of  Glenlivet. 
— The  day  after  to-morrow,  you  behold  him — 
Spring — walking  along  the  firmament,  sad,  bul 
not  sullen — mournful,  but  not  miserable — dis- 
turbed, but  not  despairing — now  coming  out 
towards  you  in  a  burst  of  light — and  now  fad- 
ing away  from  you  in  a  gathering  of  gloom — 
even  as  one  might  figure  in  his  imagination  a 
fallen  Angel.  On  Thursday,  confound  you  if 
you  know  what  the  dense  to  make  of  his 
Springship.  There  he  is,  stripped  to  the  buff 
— playing  at  hide-and-seek,  hare-and-hound, 
with  a  queer  crazy  crony  of  his  in  a  fur  cap, 
swandown  waistcoat,  and  hairy  breeches,  Lod- 
brog  or  Winter.  You  turn  up  the  whites  of 
your  ej'es,  and  the  browns  of  your  hands  in 
amazement,  till  the  Two,  by  way  of  change 
of  pastime,  cease  their  mutual  vagaries,  and 
like  a  couple  of  hawks  diverting  themselves 
with  an  owl,  in  conclusion  buffet  you  off  the 
premises.  You  insert  the  occurrence,  with 
suitable  reflections,  in  your  Meteorological 
Diary,  under  the  head — Spring.  On  Friday, 
nothing  is  seen  of  you  but  the  blue  tip  of  your 
nose,  for  you  are  confined  to  bed  by  rheuma- 
tism, and  nobody  admitted  to  your  sleepless 
sanctum  but  your  condoling  Mawsey.  'Tis  a 
pity.  For  never  since  the  Hood-greened  earth 
on  ner  first  resurrection  morn  laughed  around 
Ararat,  spanned  was  she  by  such  a  Rainbow! 
By  all  that  is  various  and  vanishing,  the  arch 
seems  many  miles  broad,  and  many  miles  high, 
and  all  creation  to  be  gladly  and  gloriously 
gathered  together  without  being  crowded — 
plains,  woods,  villages,  towns,  hills,  and 
clouds,  beneath  the  pathway  of  Spring,  once 
more  an  .\ngel — an  unfallen  Angel !  While  the 
tinge  that  trembles  into  transcendent  hues  fad- 
ing and  fluctuating — deepening  and  dying — 
now  gone,  as  if  forever — and  now  back  again 
in  an  instant,  as  if  breathing  and  alive — is  felt, 


during  all  that  wavering  visitation,  to  be  of  all 
sights  the  most  evanescent,  and  yet  inspira- 
tive  of  a  beauty-born  belief,  bright  as  the  sun 
that  flung  the  image  on  the  cloud — profound  as 
the  gloom  it  illumines — that  it  shone  and  is 
shining  there  at  the  bidding  of  Him  who  in- 
habiteth  eternity. — The  grim  noon  of  Saturday, 
after  a  moaning  morning,  and  one  silent  inter- 
mediate lour  of  grave-like  stillness,  begins  to 
gleam  fitfully  with  lightning  like  a  maniac's 
eye  ;  and  is  not  that 

"  The  sound 
Of  thunder  heard  remote  1" 

On  earth  wind  there  is  none — not  so  much  as 
a  breath.  But  there  is  a  strong  v/ind  in  hea- 
ven— for  see  how  that  huge  cloud-city,  a  night 
within  a  day,  comes  moving  on  along  the  hid- 
den mountain-tops,  and  hangs  over  the  loch  all 
at  once  black  as  pitch,  except  that  here  and 
there  a  sort  of  sullen  purple  heaves  upon  the 
long  slow  swell,  and  here  and  there  along  the 
shores — how  caused  we  know  not — are  seen, 
but  heard  not,  the  white  melancholy  breakers! 
Is  no  one  smitten  blind  ?  No!  Thank  God! 
But  ere  the  thanksgiving  has  been  worded,  an 
airquake  has  split  asunder  the  cloud-city,  the 
night  within  the  day,  and  all  its  towers  and 
temples  are  disordered  along  the  firmament,  to 
a  sound  that  might  waken  the  dead.  Where 
are  ye,  ye  echo-hunters,  that  grudge  not  to 
purchase  gunpowder  explosions  on  Lowood 
bowling-green  at  four  shillings  the  blast  ?  See! 
there  are  our  artillcrj'men  stalking  from  bat- 
tery to  battery — all  hung  up  aloft  facing  the 
west^-or  "  each  standing  by  his  gun"  with 
lighted  match,  moving  or  motionless.  Shadow- 
figures,  and  all  clothed  in  black-blue  uniform, 
with  blood-red  facings  portentously  glancing 
in  the  sun,  as  he  strives  to  struggle  into  hea- 
ven. The  Generalissimo  of  all  the  forces,  who 
is  he  but — Spring  1 — Hand  in  hand  with  Spring, 
Sabbath  descends  from  heaven  unto  earth;  and 
are  not  their  feet  beautiful  on  the  mountains'! 
Small  as  is  the  voice  of  that  tinkling  bell  from 
that  humble  spire,  overtopped  by  its  coeval 
trees,  yet  is  it  heard  in  the  heart  of  infinitude. 
So  is  the  bleating  of  these  silly  sheep  on  the 
braes — and  so  is  that  voice  of  psalms,  all  at 
once  rising  so  spirit-like,  as  if  the  very  kirk 
were  animated,  and  singing  a  joyous  song  in 
the  wilderness  to  the  ear  of  the  Most  High. 
For  all  things  are  under  his  care — those  that, 
as  we  dream,  have  no  life — the  flowers,  and 
the  herbs,  and  the  trees — those  that  some  dim 
scripture  seems  to  say,  when  they  die,  utterly 
perish — and  those  that  all  bright  scripture, 
whether  written  in  the  book  of  God,  or  the 
book  of  Nature,  declares  will  live  for  ever! 

If  such  be  the  character  and  conduct  of 
Spring  during  one  week,  wilt  thou  not  forget 
and  forgive — with  us — much  occasional  con- 
duct on  his  part  that  appears  not  only  inex- 
plicable, but  incomprehensible]  But  we  can- 
not extend  the  same  indulgence  to  Summer 
and  to  Autumn.  Si-mmeh  is  a  season  come  to 
the  years  of  discretion,  and  ought  to  conduct 
himself  like  a  staid,  sober,  sensible,  middle- 
aged  man,  not  past,  but  passing,  his  prime. 
Now,  Summer,  we  are  sorry  to  say  it,  often 
behaves  in  a  way  to  make  his   best  friends 


SOLILOQUY  ON  THE  SEASONS. 


251 


ashamed  of  him — in  a  way  absolutely  dis- 
graceful to  a  person  of  his  time  of  life.  Hav- 
ing picked  a  quarrel  with  the  Sun — his  bene- 
factor, nay,  his  father — what  else  could  he 
expect  but  that  that  enlightened  Christian 
would  altogether  withhold  his  countenance 
from  so  undutiful  and  ungrateful  a  child,  and 
leave  him  to  travel  along  the  mire  and  beneath 
the  clouds'!  For  some  weeks  Summer  was 
sulky — and  sullenly  scorned  to  shed  a  tear. 
His  eyes  were  like  ice.  By  and  by,  like  a 
great  school-boy,  he  began  to  whine  and 
whimper — and  when  he  found  that  would  not 
do,  he  blubbered  like  the  booby  of  the  lowest 
form.  Still  the  Sun  would  not  look  on  him — 
or  if  he  did,  'twas  with  a  sudden  and  short 
half-scowl  that  froze  the  ingrate's  blood.  At 
last  the  Summer  grew  contrite,  and  the  Sun 
forgiving;  the  one  burst  out  into  a  flood  of 
tears,  the  other  into  a  flood  of  light.  In  sim- 
ple words,  the  Summer  wept  and  the  Sun 
smiled — and  for  one  broken  month  there  was 
a  perpetual  alternation  of  rain  and  radiance ! 
How  beautiful  is  penitence !  How  beautiful 
forgiveness  !  For  one  week  the  Summer  was 
restored  to  his  pristine  peace  and  old  luxuri- 
ance, and  the  desert  blossomed  like  the  rose. 

Therefore  ask  we  the  Summer's  pardon  for 
thanking  Heaven  that  he  was  dead.  Would 
that  he  were  alive  again,  and  buried  not  for 
ever  beneath  the  yellow  forest  leaves  !  0  thou 
first,  faint,  fair,  finest  tinge  of  dawning  Light 
that  streaks  the  still-sleeping  yet  just-waking 
face  of  the  morn,  Light  and  no-Light,  a  sha- 
dowy Something,  that  as  we  gaze  is  felt  to  be 
growing  into  an  emotion  that  must  be  either 
innocence  or  Beauty,  or  both  blending  together 
into  devotion  before  Deity,  once  more  duly 
visible  in  the  divine  colouring  that  forebodes 
another  day  to  mortal  life — before  Thee  what 
holy  bliss  to  kneel  upon  the  greensward  in 
some  forest  glade,  while  every  leaf  is  a-tremble 
with  dewdrops,  and  the  happy  little  birds  are 
beginning  to  twitter,  yet  motionless  among  the 
boughs — before  Thee  to  kneel  as  at  a  shrine, 
and  breathe  deeper  and  deeper — as  the  lustre 
waxeth  purer  and  purer,  brighter  and  more 
bright,  till  range  after  range  arise  of  crimson 
clouds  in  altitude  sublime,  and  breast  above 
breast  expands  of  yellow  woods  softly  glitter- 
ing in  their  far-spread  magnificence — then 
what  holy  bliss  to  breathe  deeper  and  deeper 
unto  Him  who  holds  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand 
the  heavens  and  the  earth,  our  high  but  most 
humble  orisons!  But  now  it  is  Day,  and 
broad  awake  seems  the  whole  joyful  world. 
The  clouds — lustrous  no  more — are  all  an- 
chored on  the  sky,  white  as  fleets  waiting  for 
the  wind.  Time  is  not  felt — and  one  might 
dream  that  the  Day  was  to  endure  for  ever. 
Yet  the  great  river  rolls  on  in  the  light — and 
why  will  he  leave  those  lovely  inland  woods 
for  the  naked  shores  !  Why — responds  some 
voice — hurry  we  on  our  lives — impetuous  and 
jiassionate  far  more  than  he  with  all  his  cata- 
racts— as  if  anxious  to  forsake  the  regions  of 
the  upper  day  for  the  dim  place  from  which 
we  yet  recoil  in  fear — the  dim  place  which 
imagination  sometimes  seems  to  see  even 
through  the  sunshine,  beyond  the  bourne  of 
this  our  unintelligible   being,  stretching  sea- 


like into  a  still  more  mysterious  night!  Long 
as  a  Midsummer  Day  is,  it  has  gone  by  like  a 
Heron's  flight.  The  sun  is  setting! — and  let 
him  set  without  being  scribbled  upon  by 
Christopher  North.  We  took  a  pen-and-ink 
sketch  of  him  in  a  "  Day  on  Windermere." 
Poor  nature  is  much  to  be  pitied  among  paint- 
ers and  poets.  They  are  perpetually  falling 
into 

"  Such  perusal  of  her  face 
As  they  would  draw  it." 

And  often  must  she  be  sick  of  the  Curious  Im- 
pertinents.  But  a  Curious  Impertinent  are 
not  we — if  ever  there  was  one  beneath  the 
skies,  a  devout  worshipper  of  Nature ;  and 
though  we  often  seem  to  heed  not  her  shrine — 
it  stands  in  our  imagination,  like  a  temple  in  a 
perpetual  Sabbath. 

It  was  poetically  and  piously  said  by  the 
Ettrick  Shepherd,  at  a  Noctes,  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  in  nature  as  bad  weather.  Take 
Summer,  which  early  in  our  soliloquy  we 
abused  in  good  set  terms.  Its  weather  was 
broken,  but  not  bad  ;  and  much  various  beauty 
and  sublimity  is  involved  in  the  epithet 
"broken,"  when  applied  to  the  "season  of  the 
year."  Common-place  people,  especially  town- 
dwellers,  who  flit  into  the  country  for  a  few 
months,  have  a  silly  and  absurd  idea  of  Sum- 
mer, which  all  the  atmospherical  phenomena 
fail  to  drive  out  of  their  foolish  fancies.  They 
insist  on  its  remaining  with  us  for  half  a  year 
at  least,  and  on  its  being  dressed  in  its  Sun- 
day's best  every  day  in  the  week  as  long  as 
they  continue  in  country  quarters.  The  Sun 
must  rise,  like  a  labourer,  at  the  very  earliest 
hour,  shine  all  day,  and  go  to  bed  late,  else 
they  treat  him  contumeliously,  and  declare 
that  he  is  not  worth  his  meat.  Should  he  re- 
tire occasionally  behind  a  cloud,  which  it  seems 
most  natural  and  reasonable  for  one  to  do  who 
lives  so  much  in  the  public  eye,  why  a  whole 
watering-place,  uplifiing  a  face  of  dissatisfied 
expostulation  to  heaven,  exclaims,  "Where  is 
the  Sun"?  Are  we  never  to  have  any  Sun"!" 
They  also  insist  that  there  shall  be  no  rain  of 
more  than  an  hour's  duration  in  the  daytime, 
but  that  it  shall  all  fall  by  night.  Yet  when 
the  Sun  docs  exert  himself,  as  if  at  their  bid- 
ding, and  is  shining,  as  he  supposes,  to  their 
heart's  content,  up  go  a  hundred  green  parasols 
in  his  face,  enough  to  startle  the  celestial 
steeds  in  his  chariot.  A  broken  summer  for 
us.  Now  and  then  a  few  continuous  days — 
perhaps  a  whole  week — but,  if  that  be  denied, 
now  and  then, 

''Like  angel  visits,  few  and  far  between," 
one  single  Day  —  blue-spread  over  heaven, 
green-spread  over  earth — no  cloud  above,  no 
shade  below,  save  that  dove-coloured  marble 
lying  motionless  like  the  mansions  of  peace, 
and  that  pensive  gloom  that  falls  from  some 
old  castle  or  venerable  wood — the  stillness  of 
a  sleeping  joy,  to  our  heart  profounder  than 
that  of  death,  in  the  air,  in  the  sky,  and  resting 
on  our  mighty  mother's  undisturbed  breast — 
no  lowing  on  "the  hills,  no  bleating  on  the  braes 
—  the  rivers  almost  silent  as  lochs,  and  the 
lochs,  just  visible  in  their  aerial  purity,  float 
ing  dream-like  between  earth  and  sky,  imbued 
with  the  beauty  of  both,  and  seeming  to  belong 


252 


RECREATIO^'S  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


to  either,  as  the  heart  melts  to  human  tender- 
ness, or  beyond  all  mortal  loves  the  imagina- 
tion soars !  Such  days  seem  now  to  us — as 
memory  and  imagination  half  restore  and  half 
create  the  past  into  such  weather  as  may  have 
shone  over  the  bridal  morn  of  our  first  parents 
in  Paradise — to  have  been  frequent — nay,  to 
have  lasted  all  the  S.ummer  long — when  our 
boyhood  was  bright  from  the  hands  of  God. 
Each  of  those  days  was  in  itself  a  life !  Yet 
ail  those  sunny  lives  melted  into  one  Summer 
— and  all  those  Summers  formed  one  continu- 
ous bliss.  Storms  and  snows  vanished  out  of 
our  ideal  year;  and  then  morning,  noon,  and 
night,  wherever  we  breathed,  we  felt,  what  now 
we  but  know,  the  inmost  meaning  of  that  pro- 
found verse  of  Virgil  the  Divine — 

"Pevpnerc  locos  KtIos,  et  aiiin?na  virota 
Fnrtiitiatoriiin  nenioriirii,  sedosqiie  healas. 
I.areior  lilc  caiiipos  trthi-r  el  luniinc  veslit 
I'urpureo:  soluiuquc  suiiin,  sua  sidcra  norunl." 

Few — no  such  days  as  those  seem  now  ever 
to  be  born.  Sometimes  we  indeed  gaze  through 
the  face  into  the  heart  of  the  sky,  and  for  a 
moment  feel  that  the  ancient  glory  of  the 
heavens  has  returned  on  our  dream  cf  life. 
But  to  the  perfect  beatitude  of  the  skies  there 
comes  from  the  soul  within  us  a  mournful  re- 
sponse, that  betokens  some  wide  and  deep — 
some  everlasting  change.  Joy  is  not  now  what 
joy  was  of  yore;  like  a  fine  diamond  with  a 
flaw  is  now  Imagination's  eye;  other  motes 
than  those  that  float  through  ether  cross  be- 
tween its  01  b  and  the  sun  ;  the  •'  fine  gold  has 
become  dim,"  with  which  morning  and  evening 
of  old  embossed  the  skies  ;  the  dcwdrops  are 
not  now  the  pearls  once  they  were,  left  on 

"  Flowers,  and  weeds  as  beautiful  as  flowers," 

by  angels'  and  by  fairies'  wings;  knowledge, 
custom,  experience,  fate,  fortune,  error,  vice, 
and  sin,  have  dulled,  and  darkened,  and  dead- 
ened all  things;  and  the  soul,  unable  to  bring 
over  the  Present  the  ineffable  bliss  and  beautv 
of  the  Past,  almost  swoons  to  think  what  a 
ghastly  thunder-gloom  may  by  Providence  be 
reserved  for  the  Future  ! 

Nay — nay — things  are  not  altogether  so  bad 
with  us  as  this  strain — sincere  though  it  be  as 
a  stream  from  the  sacred  mountains — might 
seem  to  declare.  We  can  yet  enjoy  a  broken 
Summer.  It  would  do  your  heart  good  to  see 
us  hobbling  with  our  crutch  along  the  High- 
land hills,  sans  great-coat  or  umbrella,  in  a 
summer-shower,  aiblins  cap  in  hand  that  our 
hair  may  grow,  up  to  the  knees  in  the  bonny 
blooming  heather,  or  clambering,  like  an  old 
goat,  among  the  cliffs.  Nothing  so  good  for 
gout  or  rheumatism  as  to  get  wet  through, 
while  the  thermometer  keeps  ranging  between 
00°  and  70°,  three  times  a-day.  What  refresh- 
ment in  the  very  sound — Soaking  !  Old  bones 
wax  dry — nerves  numb  —  sinews  stiff" — flesh 
frail  —  and  there  is  a  sad  drawback  on  the 
Whole  Duty  of  Man.  But  a  sweet,  soft,  sou'- 
wester blows  "caller"  on  our  crazincss,  and 
all  our  pores  instinctively  open  their  mouths 
at  the  approach  of  rain.  Look  but  at  those 
dozen  downward  showers,  all  denizens  of 
heaven,  how  black,  and  blue,  and  bright  they 
m   their  glee  are  streaming,   and  gleaming 


athwart  the  sunny  mountain  gloom,  while  ever 
as  they  descend  on  earth,  lift  up  the  streams 
along  the  wilderness  louder  and  louder  a  choral 
song.  Look  now  at  the  heather — and  smile 
whenever  henceforth  you  hear  people  talk  of 
purple.  You  have  been  wont  to  call  a  gold 
guinea  or  a  sovereign  yellmr — but  if  you  have 
got  one  in  your  pocket,  place  it  on  your  palm, 
and  in  the  light  of  that  broom  is  it  not  a  dirty 
brown?  You  have  an  emerald  ring  on  your 
finger — but  how  gray  it  looks  beside  the  green 
of  those  brackens,  that  pasture,  that  wood ! 
Purple,  yellow,  and  green,  j'ou  have  now  seen, 
sir,  for  the  first  time  in  your  life.  Widening 
and  widening  over  your  head,  all  the  while 
you  have  been  gazing  on  the  heather,  the 
broom,  thebracken,  the  pastures, and  the  woods, 
have  the  eternal  heavens  been  preparing  for 
j'ou  a  vision  of  the  sacred  Illuc.  Is  not  that 
an  Indigo  Divine  ?  Or,  if  you  scorn  that  mer- 
cantile and  manufacturing  image,  steal  that 
blue  from  the  sky,  and  let  the  lady  of  your  love 
tinge  but  her  eyelids  with  one  touch,  and  a 
sainllier  beauty  will  be  in  her  upward  looks  as 
she  beseeches  Heaven  to  bless  thee  in  her 
prayers  !  Set  slowly — slowly — slowly — O  Sun 
of  Suns  !  as  may  be  allowed  by  the  laws  of 
Nature.  For  not  long  after  Thou  hast  sunk 
behind  those  mountains  into  the  sea,  will  that 
celestial  nosi-nKD  be  tabernacled  in  the  hea- 
vens ! 

Meanwhile,  three  of  the  dozen  showers  have 
so  soaked  and  steeped  our  old  crazy  carcass 
in  refreshment,  and  restoration,  and  renewal  of 
youth,  that  we  should  not  be  surprised  were 
we  to  outlive  that  raven  croaking  in  pureirofr/c 
(hi  eavr  on  the  cliflT.  Threescore  and  ten  years  ! 
Poo — 'tis  a  pitiful  span!  At  a  hundred  we 
shall  cut  capers — for  twenty  years  more  keep 
to  the  Highland  fling — and  at  the  close  of  other 
twenty,  jig  it  into  the  grave  to  that  matchless 
strathspey,  the  Reel  of  Tullochgorum  ! 

Having  thus  made  our  peace  with  last  Sum- 
mer, can  we  allow  the  Sun  to  go  down  on  our 
wrath  towards  the  Avtims,  whose  back  we 
yet  see  on  the  horizon,  before  he  turn  about  to 
bow  adieu  to  our  hemisphere  1  Hollo!  meet 
us  halfway  in  yonder  immense  field  of  pota- 
toes, our  Worthy  season,  and  among  these 
peacemakers,  the  Mealies  and  the  Waxies, 
shall  we  two  smoke  together  the  calumet  or 
cigar  of  reconciliation.  The  floods  fell,  and 
the  folk  feared  famine.  The  people  whined 
over  the  smut  in  wheat,  and  pored  pale  on  the 
Monthly  Agricultural  Report.  Grain  grew 
greener  and  greener — reapers  stood  at  the 
crosses  of  villages,  towns,  and  cities,  passing 
from  one  to  another  comfortless  qnechs  of  sma' 
yill,  with  their  straw-bound  sickles  hanging 
idle  across  their  shoulders,  and  with  unhired- 
looking  faces,  as  ragged  as  if  you  were  to 
dream  of  a  Symposium  of  Scarecrows.  Alarm- 
ed imagination  beheld  harvest  treading  on  the 
heels  of  Christmas, 

And  Britain  sadden'd  at  the  long  delay!" 

when,  whew !  to  dash  the  dismal  predictions 
of  foolish  and  false  prophets,  came  nislling 
from  all  the  airts,  far,  far  and  wide  over  the 
rain-drenched  kingdom,  the  great  armament 
of  the  Autumnal  Winds  !     Groaned  the  grain, 


SOLILOQUY  ON  THE  SEASONS. 


253 


as  m  sudden  resurrection  it  lifted  up  its  nead, 
and  knew  that  again  the  Sun  was  in  Heaven. 
Death  became  Life;  and  the  hearts  of  the  hus- 
bandmen sang  aloud  for  joy.  Like  Turks,  the 
reapers  brandished  their  sickles  in  the  breezy 
light,  and  evtry  field  glittered  with  Christian 
crescents.  Auld  wives  and^bits  o'  weans  min- 
gled on  the  rig — killed  to  the  knees,  like  the 
comely  cummers,  and  the  handsome  hizzies, 
and  the  lusome  lassies  wi'  their  silken  snoods 
— among  the  heather-legged  Highlandmen,  and 
the  bandy  Lishers,  brawny  all,  and  with  hook, 
scythe,  or  flail,  inferior  to  none  of  the  children 
of  men.  The  scene  lies  in  Scotland — but  now, 
too,  is  England  "Merry  England"  indeed,  and 
outside  passengers  on  a  thousand  coaches  see 
stooks  rising  like  stacks,  and  far  and  wide, 
over  the  tree-speckled  champaign,  rejoice  in 
the  sun-given  promise  of  a  glorious  harvest- 
home.  Intervenes  the  rest  of  two  sunny  Sab- 
baths sent  to  dry  the  brows  of  labour,  and  give 
the  last  ripeness  to  the  overladen  stalks  that, 
top-heavy  with  aliment,  fall  over  in  their  yel- 
lowy whiteness  into  the  fast  reaper's  hands. 
Few  fields  now — but  here  and  there  one  thin 
and  greenish,  of  cold,  unclean,  or  stony  soil — 
are  waving  in  the  shadowy  winds;  for  all  are 
cleared,  but  some  stooked  stubbles  from  which 
the  stooks  are  fast  disappearing,  as  the  huge 
wains  seem  to  halt  for  a  moment,  impeded  by 
the  gates  they  hide,  and  then,  crested  perhaps 
with  laughing  boys  and  girls, 

"Down  the  roiigli  slope  the  ponderous  wagon  rings," 

no — not  rings — for  Beattie,  in  that  admirable 
line,  lets  us  hear  a  cart  going  out  empty  in 
the  morning — but  with  a  cheerful  dull  sound, 
ploughing  along  the  black  soil,  the  clcnn  dirt 
almost  up  to  the  axletree,  and  then,  as  the 
wheels,  rimmed  you  might  always  think  with 
silver,  reach  the  road,  macadamized  till  it 
acts  like  a  railway,  how  glides  along  downhill 
the  moving  mountain !  And  see  now,  the 
growing  Stack  glittering  with  a  charge  of 
pitchforks  !  The  trams  fly  up  from  Dobbin's 
back,  and  a  shoal  of  sheaves  overflows  the 
mire.  Up  they  go,  tossed  from  sinewy  arms 
like  feathers,  and  the  Stack  grows  before 
your  eyes,  fairly  proportioned  as  a  beehive, 
without  line  or  measure,  but  shaped  by  the 
look  and  the  feel,  true  almost  as  the  spring  in- 
stinct of  the  nest-building  bird.  And  are  we 
not  heartily  ashamed  of  ourselves,  amidst  this 
general  din  of  working  mirthful ness,  for 
having,  but  an  hour  ago,  abused  the  jovial 
and  generous  Autumn,  and  thanked  Heaven 
that  he  was  dead  1  Let  us  retire  into  the  barn 
with  Shoosy,  and  hide  our  blushes. 

Comparisons  are  odoriferous,  and  therefore 
for  one  paragraph  let  us  compare  Autumx 
with  Sprixg.  Suppose  ourselves  sitting  be- 
neath The  Sycamore  of  Windermere  !  Poets 
call  Spring  Green-Mantle — and  true  it  is  that  the 
groundwork  of  his  garbis  green — even  like  that 
of  the  proud  peacock's  changeful  neck,  when 
the  creature  treads  in  the  circle  of  his  own 
splendour,  and  the  scholar  who  may  have  for- 
gotten his  classics,  has  yet  a  dream  of  Juno 
and  of  her  watchful  Argus  with  his  hundred, 
his  thousand  eyes.     But  the  coat  of  Spring, 


like  that  of  .Joseph,  is  a  coat  of  many  colours 
Call  it  patchwork  if  3'ou  choose, 

"And  be  yourself  the  great  sublime  you  draw." 
Some  people  look  on  nature  with  a  milliner's 
or  a  mantua-maker's  eye — arraying  her  in 
furbelows  and  flounces.  But  use  your  own 
eyes  and  ours,  and  from  beneath  The  Syca- 
more let  us  two,  sitting  together  in  amity, 
look  lovingly  on  the  Spring.  Felt  ever  your 
heart  before,  with  such  an  emotion  of  harmo- 
nious beauty,  the  exquisitely  delicate  distinc- 
tions of  character  among  the  lovely  tribes  of 
trees !  That  is  Belle  Isle.  Earliest  to  sa- 
lute the  vernal  rainbow,  with  a  glow  of  green 
gentle  as  its  own,  is  the  lake-loving  Alder, 
whose  home,  too,  is  by  the  flowings  of  all  the 
streams.  Just  one  degree  fainter  in  its  hue — or 
shall  we  rather  say  brighter — for  we  feel  the 
difference  without  knowing  in  what  it  lies — 
stands,  by  the  Alder's  roundedsoftness,thespiral 
Larch,  all  hung  over  its  limber  sprays,  were  you 
near  enough  to  admire  them,  with  cones  of  the 
Tyrian  dye.  The  stem,  white  as  silver,  and 
smooth  as  silk,  seen  so  straight  in  the  green 
silvan  ligHt,  and  there  airily  overarching  the 
coppice  with  lambent  tresses,  such  as  fancy 
might  picture  for  the  mermaid's  hair,  pleasant 
as  is  her  life  on  that  Fortunate  Isle,  is  yet 
said  by  us,  who  vainly  attribute  our  own  sad- 
ness to  unsorrowing  things — to  belong  to  a 
Tree  that  weeps  , — though  a  weight  of  joy  it  is, 
and  of  exceeding  gladness,  that  thus  depresses 
the  Birch's  pendent  beaut}',  till  it  droops — as 
we  think — like  that  of  a  being  overcome 
with  grief!  Seen  standing  all  along  by  them- 
selves, with  something  of  a  foreign  air  and  an 
exotic  expression,  yet  not  unwelcome  or  ob- 
trusive among  our  indigenous  fair  forest-trees, 
twinkling  to  the  touch  of  every  wandering  wind, 
and  restless  even  amidst  what  seemeth  now 
to  be  everlasting  rest,  we  cannot  choose 
but  admire  that  somewhat  darker  grove  of 
columnar  Lombardy  Poplars.  How  comes 
it  that  some  Sycamores  so  much  sooner 
than  others  salute  the  spring '!  Yonder  are 
some  but  budding,  as  if  yet  the  frost  lay  on  the 
honey-dew  that  protects  the  beamy  germs. 
There  are  others  warming  into  expansion,  half- 
budded  and  half-leaved,  with  a  various  light 
of  colour  visible  in  that  sun-glint  distinctly 
from  afar.  And  in  that  nook  of  the  still  sun- 
nier south,  trending  eastward,  a  few  are  al- 
most in  their  full  summer  foliage,  and  soon 
will  the  bees  be  swarming  among  their  flowers. 
A  Horse  Chestnut  has  a  grand  oriental  air, 
and  like  a  satrap  uplifts  his  green  banner  yel- 
lowing in  the  light — that  shows  he  belongs  to 
the  line  of  the  Prophet.  Elms  are  then  most 
magnificent — witness  Christ-Church  walk — 
when  they  hang  overhead  in  heaven  like  the 
chancel  of  a  cathedral.  Yet  here,  too,  are  they 
august — and  methinks  "a  dim  religious  light" 
is  in  that  vault  of  branches  just  vivifying  to 
the  Spring,  and  though  almost  bare,  tinged 
with  a  coming  hue  that  erelong  will  be  ma- 
jestic brightness.  Those  old  Oaks  seem  sul- 
len in  the  sunshine,  and  slow  to  put  forth  theii 
power,  like  the.Spirit  of  the  Land  they  emblem. 
But  they,  too,  are  relaxing  from  their  wonted 
sternness — soon  will  that  faint  green  be  a  glo 
V 


254 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


rious  yellow;  and  while  the  gold-laden  boughs 
stoop  boldly  to  the  storms  with  which  they 
love  to  dally,  bounds  not  the  heart  of  every 
Briton  to  the  music  of  his  national  anthem, 

"Rule,  Hritannia, 
Britannia,  rule  the  waves  I" 

The  Ash  is  a  manly  tree,  but  "dreigh  and 
dour"  in  the  leafing;  and  yonder  stands  an 
Ash-grove  like  a  forest  of  ships  with  bare  poles 
like  the  docks  of  Liverpool.  Yet  like  the  town 
of  Kilkenny 

"It  shines  well  where  it  stands  ;" 

and  the  bare  gray-blue  of  the  branches,  apart 
but  not  repulsive,  like  some  cunning  discord 
in  music  deepens  the  harmony  of  the  Isle  of 
Groves.  Contrast  is  one  of  the  finest  of  all 
the  laws  of  association,  as  every  philosopher, 
poet,  and  peasant  kens.  At  this  moment  it 
brings,  by  the  bonds  of  beauty,  though  many 
glades  intervene,  close  beside  that  pale  gray- 
blue,  leafless  Ash  Clump,  that  bright  black- 
green  PixE  Clan,  whose  "leaf  fadcth  never," 
a  glorious  Scottish  tartan  triumphing  in  the 
English  woods.  Though  many  glades  inter- 
vene, we  said;  for  thou  seest  that  Bklle  Isle 
is  not  all  one  various  flush  of  wood,  but  bo- 
dropt  all  over — bcdropt  and  besprinkled  with 
grass-gems,  some  cloud-shadowed,  some  Irec- 
shaded,  some  mist-bedimmed,  and  some  lumi- 
nous as  small  soil-suns,  on  which  as  the  eye 
alights,  it  feels  soothed  and  strengthened,  and 
gifted  with  a  profounder  power  to  see  into  the 
mystery  of  the  beauty  of  nature.  But  what 
are  those  living  Hills  of  snow,  or  of  some  sub- 
stance purer  in  its  brightness  even  than  anv 
snow  that  fades  in  one  night  on  the  mountain- 
top !  Trees  are  they — fruit-trees — The  Witn 
CiiEniiY,  that  grows  stately  and  wide  spreading 
even  as  the  monarch  of  the  wood — and  can 
that  be  a  load  of  blossoms  !  Fairer  never  grew 
before  poet's  eye  of  old  in  the  fabled  Hesperides. 
See  huw  what  we  call  snow  brightens  into 
pink — yet  still  the  whole  glory  is  white,  and 
iadeth  not  away  the  purity  of  the  balmy  snow- 
blush.  Ay,  balmy  as  the  bliss  breathing  from 
virgin  lips,  when,  moving  in  the  beauty  left  by 
her  morning  prayers,  a  glad  fond  daughter 
steals  towards  him  on  the  feet  of  light,  and  as 
his  arms  open  to  receive  and  return  the  bless- 
ing, lays  her  innocence  with  smiles  that  are 
almost  tears,  within  her  father's  bosom. 

"  As  when  to  those  who  sail 
Beyond  the  ra|»o  of  Hope,  and  now  are  past 
Mozanibic,  otTnt  sea  north-oast  winds  blow 
Sal)a>n  odonrs  from  the  spiry  shore 
Of  Arahy  the  hlest ;  with  surh  delay 
Well   pleased  they  slack  their  roiirse,  and  many  a 

league, 
Cheer'd  with  the  grateful  smell,  old  Ocean  smiles." 

Shut  your  eyes — suppose  five  months  gone 
— and  lo!  Belle  Isle  in  Autumn,  like  a  scene 
in  another  hemisphere  of  our  globe.  There  is 
a  slight  frost  in  the  air,  in  the  sky,  on  the  lake, 
and  midday  is  as  still  as  midnight.  But, 
though  still,  it  is  cheerful ;  for  close  at  hand 
Robin  Redbreast — God  bless  him  ! — is  war- 
bling on  the  copestone  of  that  old  barn  gable; 
and  though  Millar-Ground  Bay  is  half  a  mile 
ofl",  how  distinct  the  clank  of  the  two  oars  like  ' 


one,  accompanying  that  large  wood-boat  on  its 
slow  voyage  from  Ambleside  to  Bowness,  the 
metropolitan  port  of  the  Queen  of  the  Lakes. 
The  water  has  lost,  you  see,  its  summer  sunni- 
ness,  yet  it  is  as  transparent  as  ever  it  was  in 
summer;  and  how  close  together  seem,  with 
their  almost  meeting  shadows,  the  two  oppo- 
site shores  !    But  we  wish  you  to  look  at  Belle 
Isle,  though  we  ourselves  are  almost  afraid  to 
do  so,  so  transcendently  glorious  is  the  sight 
that  we  know  will  disturb  us  with  an  emotion 
too  deep  to  be  endured.     Could  you  not  think 
that  a  splendid  sunset  had  fallen  down  in  frag- 
ments on  the  Isle  called  Beautiful,  and  set  it 
all  a-blaze !    The  woods  are  on  fire,  yet  they 
burn  not;  beauty  subdues  while  it  fosters  the 
flame ;  and  there,  as  in  a  many-tented  taber- 
nacle, has  Colour  pitched  his  royal  residence, 
and  reigns  in  glory  beyond  that  of  any  Orien- 
tal king.     What  are  all  the  canopies,  and  bal- 
conies, and  galleries  of  human  state,  all  hung 
with  the  richest  drapery  that  ever  the  skill  of 
Art,  that  Wizard,  drew  forth  in  gorgeous  folds 
from  his  enchanted  loom,  if  ideally  suspended 
in  the  air  of  imagination  beside  the  sun-and- 
storm-stained   furniture  of  these   Palaces  of 
Autumn,  framed  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Season, 
of  living  and  dying  umbrage,  for  his  latest  de- 
light, ere  he  move  in  annual  migration,  with 
all  his  Court,  to  some  foreign  clime  far  beyond 
the  seas  !    No  names  of  trees  are  remembered 
— a  glorious  confusion  comprehends  in  one  the 
whole    leafy  race — orange,   and   purple,   and 
scarlet,  and  crimson,  are  all  seen  to  be  there, 
and  interfused  through  the  silent  splendour  is 
aye  felt  the  presence  of  that  terrestrial  green, 
native  and  unextinguishable  in  earth's  bosom, 
as  that  celestial  blue  is  that  of  the  sky.     That 
trance  goes  by,  and  the  spirit,  gradually  filled 
with  a  stiller  delight,  takes  down  all  those  tents 
into  pieces,  and  contemplates  the  encampment 
with  less  of  imagination,  and  with  more  of 
love.     It  knows  and  blesses  each  one  of  those 
many  glorious  groves,  each  becoming,  as  it 
gazes,  less  and  less  glorious,  more  and  more 
beautiful ;  till  memory  revives  all  the  happiest 
and  holiest  hours   of    the  Summer  and   the 
Spring,  and   re-peoples   the   melancholy  um- 
brage with  a  thousand  visions  of  joy,  that  may 
return   never  more !     Images,  it   may  be,  of 
forms  and  faces  now  mouldering  in  the  dust! 
For  as  human  hearts  have  felt,  and  all  human 
lips  have  declared — melancholy  making  poets 
of  us  all,  ay.  even  prophets — till  the  pensive 
air  of  Autumn  has  been  filled  with  the  music 
of  elegiac  tind  foreboding  hymns — as  is  the 
Race  of  Leaves — now  old  Homer  speaks — so 
is  the  Race  of  Men!    Nor  till  time  shall  have 
an    end,  insensate  will   be   any  creature  en- 
dowed "with  discourse  of  reason"  to  those 
mysterious  misgivings,   alternating  with   tri- 
umphant aspirations   more   mysterious   still, 
when  the  Religion  of  nature  leans  in  awe  on 
the  Religion  of  God,  and  we  hear  the  voice  of 
both  in  such  strains  as  these — the  earthly,  in 
its   sadness,   momentarily  deadening   the   di- 
vine : — 

"But  whrn  shall  fprinc  visit  the  mouldering  urn  1 
Oh !  when  shall  it  dawn  on  the  night  of  ttie  grave  V 


SOLILOQUY  ON  THE  SEASONS. 


255 


SECOND  RHAPSODY. 

Have  we  not  been  speaking  of  all  the  Sea- 
sons as  belonging  to  the  masculine  gender? 
They  are  generally,  we  believe,  in  this  country, 
painted  in  petticoats,  apparently  by  bagmen, 
as  may  be  daily  seen  in  the  pretty  prints  that 
bedeck  the  paper-walls  of  the  parlours  of  inns. 
Spring  is  always  there  represented  as  a  spanker 
in  a  blue  symar,  very  pertly  exposing  her  bud- 
ding breast,  and  her  limbs  from  feet  to  fork,  in 
a  style  that  must  be  very  offensiv^e  to  the  mealy- 
mouthed  members  pf  th.nt  shamefaced  corpo- 
ration, the  Society  for  the  Suppression  of  Vice. 
She  holds  a  flower  between  her  finger  and  her 
thumb,  crocus,  violet,  or  primrose  ;  and  though 
we  verily  believe  she  means  no  harm,  she  no 
doubt  does  look  rather  leeringly  upon  you,  like 
one  of  the  frail  sisterhood  of  the  Come-atables. 
Summer  again  is  an  enormous  and  monstrous 
mawsey,  i»^i/ris  naturoUbuf,  meant  to  image 
Musidora,  or  the  Medicean,  or  rather  the  Hot- 
fenlot  Venus. 

"  So  stands  the  statue  that  enchants  the  world  !" 
She  seems,  at  the  very  lightest,  a  good  round 
half  hundred  heavier  than  Spring;  and,  when 
you  imagine  her  plunging  into  the  pool,  you 
think  you  hear  a  porpus.  May  no  Damon  run 
uway  with  her  clothes,  leaving  behind  in  ex- 
change his  heart !  Gadflies  are  rife  in  the  dog- 
. lays,  and  should  one  "  imparadise  himself  in 
form  of  that  sweet  flesh,"  there  will  be  a  cry 
in  the  woods  that  will  speedily  bring  to  her 
assistance  Pan  and  all  his  Satyrs.  Autumn  is 
a  motherly  matron,  evidently  oircinir,  and,  like 
Love  and  Charity,  who  probably  are  smiling 
on  the  opposite  wall,  she  has  a  brace  of  bounc- 
ing babies  at  her  breast — in  her  right  hand  a 
formidable  sickle,  like  a  Turkish  scymitar — 
in  her  loft  an  extraordinary  utensil,  bearing, 
we  believe,  the  heathenish  appellation  of 
cornucopia — on  her  back  a  sheaf  of  wheat — 
and  on  her  head  a  diadem — planted  there  by 
John  Bariej'corn.  She  is  a  fearsome  dear  ;  as 
ugly  a  customer  as  a  lonely  man  would  wish 
to  encounter  beneath  the  light  of  a  September 
moon.  On  her  feet  are  bauchles — on  her  legs 
buggers — and  the  breadth  of  her  soles,  and  the 
thickness  of  her  ankles,  we  leave  to  your  own 
conjectures.  Her  fine  bust  is  conspicuous  in 
an  open  laced  boddice — and  her  huge  hips  are 
set  olT  to  the  biggest  advantage,  by  a  jacket 
that  she  seems  to  have  picked  up  by  the  way- 
side, after  some  jolly  tar,  on  his  return  from  a 
long  voyage,  had  there  been  performing  his 
toilet,  and,  by  getting  rid  of  certain  incum- 
brances, enabled  to  pursue  his  inland  journey 
•with  less  resemblance  than  before  to  a  walk- 
ing scarecrow.  Winter  is  a  withered  old 
beldam,  too  poor  to  keep  a  cat,  hurkling  on 
her  hunkers  over  a  feeble  fire  of  sticks,  ex- 
tinguished fast  as  it  is  beeted,  with  a  fizz  in 
the  melted  snow  which  all  around  that  un- 
housed wretchedness  is  indurated  with  frost; 
while  a  blue  pool  close  at  hand  is  chained  in 
iciness,  and  an  old  stump,  half  buried  in  the 
drift.  Poor  old,  miserable,  cowering  crone! 
One  cannot  look  at  her  without  unconsciously 
putting  one's  hand  in  his  pocket,  and  fumbling 
for  a  tester.  Yes,  there  is  pathos  in  the  picture. 


especially  while,  on  turning  round  your  head, 
you  behold  a  big  blockhead  of  a  vulgar  bag- 
man, with  his  coat-tails  over  his  arms,  warm- 
ing his  loathsome  hideousness  at  a  fire  that 
would  roast  an  ox. 

Such  are  the  Seasons  !  And  though  we  have 
spoken  of  them,  as  mere  critics  on  art,  some- 
what superciliously,  yet  there  is  almost  always 
no  inconsiderable  merit  in  all  prints,  pictures,  * 
paintings,  poems,  or  prose-works,  that — pardon 
our  tautology — are  popular  with  the  people. 
The  emblematical  figments  now  alluded  to, 
have  been  the  creations  of  persons  of  genius, 
who  had  never  had  access  to  the  works  of  the 
old  masters  ;  so  that,  though  the  conception  is 
good,  the  execution  is,  in  general,  far  from  per- 
fect. Yet  many  a  time,  when  lying  at  our 
ease  in  a  Wayside  Inn,  stretched  on  three 
wooden  chairs,  with  a  little  round  deal-table 
before  us,  well  laden  with  oat-meal  cakes  and 
cheese  and  butter,  nor,  you  may  be  sure,  with- 
out its  "tappit  hen" — have  we  after  a  long 
day's  journey — perhaps  the  longest  day — 

"Throush  moors  and  mosses  many,  O," 
regarded  with  no  imaginative  spirit — when 
Joseph  and  his  brethren  were  wanting — even 
such  symbols  of  the  Seasons  as  these — while 
arose  to  gladden  us  many  as  fair  an  image  as 
ever  nature  sent  from  her  woods  and  wilder- 
nesses to  cheer  the  heart  of  her  worshipper 
who,  on  his  pilgrimage  to  her  loftiest  shrines, 
and  most  majestic  temples,  spared  not  to  stoop 
his  head  below  the  lowest  lintel,  and  held  all 
men  his  equal  who  earned  by  honest  industry 
the  scanty  fare  which  they  never  ate  without 
those  holy  words  of  supplication  and  thanks- 
giving, "Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread!" 

Our  memory  is  a  treasure-house  of  written 
and  unwritten  poetry — the  ingots,  the  gifts  of 
the  great  bards,  and  the  bars  of  bullion — much 
of  the  coin  our  own — some  of  it  borrowed 
mayhap,  but  always  on  good  security,  and 
repaid  with  interest — a  legal  transaction,  of 
which  even  a  not  unwealthy  man  has  no  need 
to  be  ashamed — none  of  it  stolen,  nor  yet  found 
where  the  Highlandman  found  the  tongs.  But 
our  riches  are  like  those  that  encumbered  the 
floor  of  the  Sanctum  of  the  Dey  of  Algiers,  not 
very  tidily  arranged ;  and  we  are  frequently 
foiled  in  our  eflTorts  to  lay  our  hand,  for  im- 
mediate use  or  ornament,  on  a  ducat  or  a  dia- 
mond, a  pistole  or  a  pearl,  a  sovereign,  or  only 
his  crown.  We  feel  ourselves  at  this  moment 
in  that  predicament,  when  trying  to  recollect 
the  genders  of  Thomson's  "Seasons" — 

"  Come,  gentle  Spring,  ethereal  mildness,  come, 
And  from  the  bosom  of  yon  dropping  cloud, 
While  music  wakes  around,  veil'd  in  a  shower 
Of  shadowing  roses,  on  our  plains  descend!" 

That  picture  is  indistinctly  and  obscurely  beau- 
tiful  to  the  imagination,  and  there  is  not  a  syl- 
lable about  sex — though  "ethereal  mildness," 
which  is  an  Impersonation,  and  hardly  an  Im- 
personation, must  be,  it  is  felt,  a  Virgin  God 
dess,  whom  all  the  divinities  that  dwell  be 
tween  heaven  and  earth  must  love.  Nevei  w 
our  taste — but  our  taste  is  inferior  to  our  feel 
ing  and  our  genius — though  you  will  seldom 
go  far  wrong  even  in  trusting  it — never  had  a 
poem  a  more  beautiful  beginning.  It  is  not 
simple— nor  ought  it  to  be — it  is  rich,  and  even 


356 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


gorgeous — for  the  Bard  came  to  his  subject 
full  of  inspiration ;  and  as  it  was  the  inspira- 
tion, here,  not  of  profound  thought,  but  of 
passionate  emotion,  it  was  right  that  music  at 
the  very  first  moment  should  overflow  the 
page,  and  that  it  should  be  literally  strewed 
with  roses.  An  imperfect  Impersonation  is 
often  proof  positive  of  the  highest  state  of 
poetical  enthusiasm.  The  forms  of  nature 
undergo  a  half  humanizing  process  under  the 
intensity  of  our  love,  yet  still  retain  the  cha- 
racter of  the  insensate  creation,  thus  affecting 
us  with  a  sweet,  strange,  almost  bewildering, 
blended  emotion  that  scarcely  belongs  to  either 
separately,  but  to  both  together  clings  as  to  a 
phenomenon  that  only  the  eye  of  genius  sees, 
because  only  the  soul  of  genius  can  give  it  a 
presence — though  afterwards  all  eyes  dimly 
recognise  it,  on  its  being  shown  to  them,  as 
something  more  vivid  than  their  own  faint  ex- 
perience, yet  either  kindred  to  it,  or  virtually 
one  and  the  same.  Almost  all  human  nature 
can,  in  some  measure,  understand  and  feel 
the  most  exquisite  and  recondite  image  which 
only  the  rarest  genius  could  produce.  Were 
it  not  so,  great  poets  might  break  their  harps, 
and  go  drown  themselves  in  Helicon. 

"  From  Itrijjhteiiins  fields  of  eilicr  fair  disclosed, 
Child  of  tin;  Sun,  refulgent  Si.mmkr  conies. 
In  pride  of  yoiilh,  and  fell  llirotiyti  Nature's  depth  : 
He  conies  attended  by  the  sultry  hours, 
And  evur-raninne  hreezcs.  on  his  way  ; 
While,  from  his  ardent  look,  the  tiirnin);  f'pring 
Averts  her  hinshfiil  face,  and  earth,  and  skies. 
All  smiling,  to  his  hot  dominion  leaves." 

Here  the  Impersonation  is  stronger  —  and 
perhaps  the  superior  strength  lies  in  the  words 
"  child  of  the  Sun."  And  here  in  the  words 
describing  Spring,  she  too  is  more  of  an  Im- 
personation than  in  the  other  passage — avert- 
ing her  blushful  face  from  the  Summer's  ardent 
look.  The  poet  having  tuade  Summer  mascu- 
line, very  properly  makes  Spring  feminine  ; 
and  'tis  a  jewel  of  a  picture — fiir  ladies  should 
always  avert  their  blushful  faces  from  the 
ardent  looks  of  gentlemen.  Thomson,  indeed, 
elsewhere  says  of  an  enamoured  youth  over- 
powered by  the  loving  looks  of  his  mistress, — 

"  From  the  keen  eaze  her  lovei  turns  away, 
Full  of  the  dear  ecstatic  power,  and  sick 
With  sighing  languishment." 

This,  we  have  heard,  from  experienced  per- 
sons of  both  sexes,  is  as  delicate  as  it  is 
natural;  but  for  our  own  simple  and  single 
selves,  we  never  remember  having  got  sick  on 
any  such  occasion.  Much  agitated,  we  can- 
not denv — if  we  did,  the  most  credulous  would 
not  credit  us — much  agitated  we  have  been — 
when  our  lady-love,  not  contented  with  fixing 
upon  us  her  dove-eyes,  began  billing  and  coo- 
ing in  a  style  from  which  the  cushat  might 
have  taken  a  lesson  with  advantage,  that  she 
might  the  better  perform  her  innocent  part  on 
her  first  assignation  with  her  affianced  in  the 
pine-grove  on  St.  Valentine's  day ;  but  never 
in  all  our  long  lives  got  we  absolutely  .<;iH' — 
hor  even. .«77(r(j»/iis/i — never  were  we  obliged  to 
turn  away  with  our  hand  to  our  mouth — but, 
on  the  contrary',  we  Avere  commonly  as  brisk 
as  a  bee  at  a  pot  of  honey ;  or,  if  that  be  too 
luscious  a  simile,  as  brisk  as  that  same  won- 
i^erful  insect  murmuring  for  a  few  moments 


round  and  round  a  rose-bush,  and  then  settling 
himself  down  seriously  to  work,  as  mute  as  a 
mouse,  among  the  half-blown  petals.  How- 
ever, we  are  not  now  writing  our  Confessions 
— and  what  we  wished  to  say  about  this  pas- 
sage is,  that  in  it  the  one  sex  is  represented  as 
turning  awaj'  the  face  from  that  of  the  other, 
which  may  be  all  natural  enough,  though 
polite  on  the  gentleman's  part  we  can  never 
call  it;  and,  had  'he  female  virgin  done  so,  we 
cannot  help  thinking  it  would  have  read  better 
m  poetry.  But  for  Spring  to  avert  /us  blushful 
face  from  the  ardent  looks  of  Summer,  has  on 
us  the  effect  of  making  both  Seasons  seem  sim- 
pletons. Spring,  in  the  character  of  "  Ethereal 
mildness,"  was  unquestionably  a  female;  but 
here  she  is  "unsexed  from  the  crown  to  the 
toe,"  and  changed  into  an  awkward  hobblete- 
hoy,  who,  having  passed  his  boyhood  in  the 
country,  is  a  booby  who  blushes  black  at  the 
gaze  of  his  own  brother,  and  if  brought  into 
the  compan}'  of  the  lasses,  would  not  fail  to 
faint  away  in  a  fit,  nor  revive  till  his  face  felt 
a  pitcherl^ul  of  cold  water. 

"Crown'd  with  the  sickle  and  the  whcaten  sheaf, 
While  .\utnnin,  nodding  o'er  the  yellow  plain. 
Comes  jovial  on,"  tec, 

is,  we  think,  bad.  The  Impersonation  here  is 
complete,  and  though  the  sex  of  Autumn  is 
not  mentioned,  it  is  manifestly  meant  to  be 
male.  So  far,  there  is  nothing  amiss  either 
one  way  or  another.  But  "nodding  o'er  the 
yellow  plain"  is  a  mere  statement  of  a  fact  in 
nature  —  and  descriptive  of  the  growing  and 
ripening  or  ripened  harvest  —  whereas  it  is 
applied  here  to  Autumn,  as  a  figure  who 
"comes  jovial  on."  This  is  not  obscurity- — or 
indistinctness — which,  as  we  have  said  before, 
is  often  a  great  beauty'in  Impersonation  ;  but 
it  is  an  inconsistency  and  a  contradiction — and 
therefore  indefensible  on  any  ground  either  of 
conception  or  expression. 

There  are  no  such  essential  vices  as  this  in 
the  "Castle  of  Indolence" — for  by  that  time 
Thomson  had  subjected  his  inspiration  to 
thought — and  his  poetry,  guided  and  guarded 
by  philosophy,  became  celestial  as  an  angel's 
song. 

"  See,  Winter  comes,  to  rule  the  varied  year, 
.'^ullen  and  sad,  with  all  his  rising  train. 
Vapours,  and  clouds,  and  storms.     Be  these  my  theme. 
These  '.  that  e.xalt  the  soul  to  solemn  thought. 
And  heavenly  musing.     Welcome,  kindred  glooms! 
Congenial  horrors,  hail '.  with  frequent  foot, 
Pleased  have  I,  in  my  cheerful  morn  of  life. 
When  nursed  by  careless  Solitude  I  lived, 
And  suns  of  Nature  with  unceasing  joy, 
Pleased  have  I  wander'd  through  your  rough  domain; 
Trod  the  pure  virgin-snows,  myself  as  pure  ; 
Heard  the  winds  roar,  and  the  big  torrents  burst; 
Or  seen  the  deep-fermenline  tempest  brew'd 
In  the  grim  evening  sky.     Thus  pass'd  the  time, 
Till  throu2h  the  lucid  chambers  of  the  south 
Look'd  out  the  joyous  Spring,  look'd  out,  and  smiled !" 

Divine  inspiration  indeed  !  Poetrj',  that  if  read 
by  the  bedside  of  a  dying  lover  of  nature, 
might 

"Create  a  soul 
Under  the  ribs  of  death'." 

What  in  the  name  of  goodness  makes  us 
suppose  that  a  mean  and  miserable  November 
day,  even  while  we  are  thus  Rhapsodizing,  is 
drizzlins;  all  Edinburgh  with  the  worst  of  all 
imaginable  Scottish  mists — an  Easterly  Harr^ 


SOLILOQUY  ON  THE  SEASONS. 


257 


We  know  that  he  infests  all  the  year,  but  shows 
his  poor  spite  in  its  bleakest  bitterness  in 
March  and  in  November.  Earth  and  heaven 
are  not  only  not  worth  looking;  at  in  an  East- 
erly Harr,  but  the  Visible  is  absolute  wretched- 
ness, and  people  wonder  why  they  were  born. 
The  visitation  begins  with  a  sort  of  character- 
less haze,  waxing  more  and  more  wetly  ob- 
scure, till  you  know  not  whether  it  be  rain, 
snow,  or  sleet,  that  drenches  your  clothes  in 
dampness,  till  you  feel  it  in  your  skin,  then  in 
your  flesh,  then  in  your  bones,  then  in  your 
marrow,  and  then  in  your  mind.  Your  blink- 
ing e}"es  have  it  too^and  so,  shut  it  as  }'ou 
will,  lias  your  moping  mouth.  Yet  the  streets, 
though  looking  blue,  are  not  puddled,  and  the 
dead  cat  lies  dry  in  the  gutter.  There  is  no 
eaves-dropping — no  gushing  of  water-spouts. 
To  say  it  rained  would  be  no  breach  of  vera- 
city, but  a  mere  misstatement  of  a  melancholy 
fact.  The  truth  is,  that  the  weather  cannot  rciin, 
but  keeps  spit,  spit,  spitting,  in  a  style  suiTi- 
cient  to  irritate  Socrates — or  even  Moses  him- 
self; and  }'et  true,  veritable,  sincere,  genuine, 
and  authentic  Rain  could  not — or  if  he  could 
would  not — so  thoroughly  soak  you  and  your 
whole  wardrobe,  were  you  to  allow  him  a  day 
lo  do  it,  as  that  shabby  imitation  of  a  tenth- 
rate  shower,  in  about  the  time  of  an  usual 
sized  sermon.  So  much  cold  and  so  much 
wet,  with  so  little  to  show  for  it,  is  a  disgrace 
to  the  atmosphere,  which  it  will  take  weeks  of 
the  sunniest  the  weather  can  aflord  to  wipe  off. 
But  the  stores  of  sunnincss  which  it  is  in  the 
power  of  Winter  in  this  northern  latitude  to 
accumulate,  cannot  be  immense;  and  there- 
fore we  verily  believe  that  it  would  be  too 
much  to  expect  that  it  ever  can  make  amends 
for  the  hideous  horrors  of  this  Easterly  Harr. 
The  Cut-throat ! 

On  such  days  suicides  rush  to  judgment. 
That  sin  is  mysterious  as  insanity — their 
graves  are  unintelligible  as  the  cells  in  Bed- 
lam. Oh !  the  brain  and  the  heart  of  man  ! 
Therein  is  the  only  Hell.  Small  these  regions 
in  space,  and  of  narrow  room — but  haunted 
may  they  be  with  all  the  Fiends  and  all  the 
Furies.  A  few  nerves  transmit  to  the  soul  de- 
spair or  bliss.  At  the  touch  of  something — 
whence  and  wherefore  sent,  who  can  say — 
something  that  serenes  or  troubles,  soothes  or 
jars — she  soars  up  into  lifeandlight,  just  as  you 
may  have  seen  a  dove  suddenly  cleave  the  sun- 
shine— or  down  she  dives  into  death  and  dark- 
ness, like  a  shot  eagle  tumbling  into  the  sea! 

Materialism  !  Immaterialism  I  Why  should 
mortals,  whom  conscience  tells  that  they  are 
immortals,  bewildered  and  bewildering  ponder 
upon  the  dust !  Do  3-our  duty  to  God  and  man, 
and  fear  not  that,  when  that  dust  dies,  the  spirit 
that  breathed  by  it  will  live  for  ever.  Feels 
not  that  spirit  its  immortality  in  each  sacred 
thought  T  When  did  ever  religious  soul  fear 
annihilation  ■?  Or  shudder  to  think  that,  hav- 
ing once  known,  it  could  ever  foiget  God? 
Such  forsetfulness  is  in  the  idea  of  eternal 
death.  Therefore  is  eternal  death  impossible 
to  us  who  can  hold  communion  with  our  Ma- 
ker. Our  knowledge  of  Him — dim  and  remote 
though  it  be — is  a  God-given  pledge  that  he 
will  redeem  us  from  the  doom  of  the  grave. 
33 


Let  us  then,  and  all  our  friends,  believe,  with 
Coleridge,  in  his  beautiful  poem  of  the  "Night- 
ingale," that 

"In  Nature  there  is  nothing  melancholy," 
not  even  November.  The  disease  of  the  body 
may  cause  disease  in  the  soul ;  yet  not  the  less 
trust  we  in  the  mercy  of  the  merciful — not  the 
less  strive  we  to  keep  feeding  and  trimming 
that  spiritual  lamp  which  is  within  us,  even 
when  it  flickers  feebly  in  the  dampy  gloom, 
like  an  earthly  lamp  left  in  a  vaulted  sepul- 
chre, about  to  die  among  the  dead.  Heaven 
seems  to  have  placed  a  power  in  our  Will  as 
mighty  as  it  is  mysterious.  Call  it  not  Liberty, 
lest  you  should  wax  proud;  call  it  not  Neces- 
sity, lest  you  should  despair.  But  turn  from 
the  oracles  of  man — still  dim  even  in  their 
clearest  responses — to  the  Oracles  of  God, 
which  are  never  dark;  or  if  so,  but 
"  Dark  with  excessive  bright  " 
to  eyes  not  constantly  accustomed  to  sustain 
the  splendour.  Bury  all  your  books,  when 
you  feel  the  night  of  skepticism  gathering 
around  you — bury  them  all,  powerful  though 
you  may  have  deemed  their  spells  to  illumi- 
nate the  unfathomable — open  your  Bible,  and 
all  the  spiritual  world  will  be  as  bright  as  day. 

The  disease  of  the  bod\'  may  cause  disease 
to  the  soul.  Ay,  madness.  Some  rapture  in 
the  soul  makes  the  brain  numb,  and  ihence 
sudden  or  lingering  death; — some  rupture  in 
the  brain  makes  the  soul  insane,  and  thence 
life  worse  than  death,  and  haunted  by  horrors 
be3'ond  what  is  dreamt  of  the  grave  and  all 
its  corruption.  Perhaps  the  line  fullest  of 
meaning  thjjt  ever  was  written,  is — 
"Mens  sana  in  corpore  sano." 

When  nature  feels  the  flow  of  its  vital  blood 
pure  and  unimpeded,  what  unutterable  glad- 
ness bathes  the  spirit  in  that  one  feeling  of — 
health  !  Then  the  mere  consciousness  of  ex- 
istence is  like  that  emotion  which  Milton 
speaks  of  as  breathed  from  the  bowers  of  Pa- 
radise— 

"  Vernal  delight  and  joy,  able  to  drive 
All  sadness  but  despair  ;" 

It  does  more — for  despair  itself  cannot  prevail 
against  it.  What  a  dawn  of  bliss  rises  upon 
us  with  the  dawn  of  light,  when  our  life  is 
healthful  as  the  sun  !    Then 

"It  feels  that  it  is  greater  than  it  knows." 

God  created  the  earth  and  the  air  beautiful 
through  the  senses;  and  at  the  uplifting  of  a 
little  lid,  a  whole  flood  of  imagery  is  let  in 
upon  the  spirit,  all  of  which  becomes  part  of 
its  very  self,  as  if  the  enjoying  and  the  enjoyed 
were  one.  Health  flies  away  like  an  angel, 
and  her  absence  disenchants  the  earth.  What 
shadows  then  pass  over  the  ethereal  surface 
of  the  spirit,  from  the  breath  of  disordered  mat- 
ter ! — from  the  first  scarcely-felt  breath  of  de- 
spondency, to  the  last  scowling  blackness  of 
despair!  Often  men  know  not  what  power 
placed  the  fatal  fetters  upon  them — they  seo 
even  that  a  link  may  be  open,  and  that  one  efibrt 
might  fling  off"  the  bondage ;  but  their  souls  are 
in  slavery,  and  will  not  be  free.  Till  something 
like  a  fresh  wind,  or  a  sudden  sunbeam,  comes 
across  them,  and  in  a  moment  their  whole  ex- 
istence is  changed,  and  thev  see  the  very  va 
i2 


258 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


nishing  of  their  most  dismal  and  desperate 
dream. 

"Somewhat  too  much  of  this" — so  let  us 
strike  the  chords  to  a  merrier  measure — to  a 
"livelier  lilt" — as  suits  the  variable  spirit  of 
our  Soliloquy.  Be  it  observed,  then,  that  the 
sole  certain  way  of  getting  rid  of  the  blue 
devils,  is  to  drown  them  in  a  shower-bath. 
You  would  not  suppose  that  we  are  subject  to 
the  blue  devils  1  Yet  we  are  sometimes  their 
very  slave.  When  driven  to  it  by  their  lash, 
every  occupation,  which  when  free  we  resort 
to  as  pastime,  becomes  taskwork ;  nor  will 
these  dogged  masters  suffer  us  to  purchase 
emancipation  with  the  proceeds  of  the  toil  of 
our  groaning  genius.  But  whenever  the 
■worst  comes  to  the  worst,  and  we  almost  wish 
to  die  so  that  wc  might  escape  the  galling 
pressure  of  our  chains,  we  sport  buff,  and  into 
the  shower-bath.  Yet  such  is  the  weakness 
of  poor  human  nature,  that  like  a  criminal  on 
the  scaffold,  shifting  the  signal  kerchief  from 
hand  to  hand,  much  to  the  irritation  of  his  ex- 
cellency the  hangman,  one  of  the  most  impa- 
tient of  men — and  more  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  crowd,  the  most  patient  of  men  and  wo- 
men— we  often  stand  shut  up  in  that  sentrj'- 
looking  canvas  box,  dexterously  and  sinis- 
trously  fingering  the  siring,  perhaps  for  five 
shrinking, and  shuddering,  and  irn/finc^  minutes, 
ere  we  can  summon  up  desperation  to  pull  down 
upon  ourselves  the  rushing  waterfall!  Soon  as 
the  agony  is  over,  we  bounce  out  the  colour  of 
beet-root,  and  survey  ourselves  in  a  five-foot 
mirror,  with  an  amazement  that,  on  each  suc- 
cessive exhibition,  is  still  as  when  we  first  ex- 
perienced it, 

"  In  life's  morning  march,  when  our  spirits  were  young." 
By  and  b)-,  we  assume  the  similitude  of  an 
immense  boiled  lobster  that  has  leapt  out  of 
the  pan — and  then,  secmipg  for  a  while  to  be 
an  emblematical  or  symbolical  representation 
of  the  setting  Sun,  we  sober  down  into  a  faint 
pink,  like  that  of  the  Morn,  and  finally  subside 
into  our  own  permanent  flesh-light,  which,  as 
we  turn  our  back  upon  ourselves,  after  the 
fashion  of  some  of  his  majestj^'s  ministers,  re- 
minds us  of  that  line  in  Cowper  descriptive  of 
the  November  Moon — 

"Resplendent  less,  but  of  an  ampler  round." 
Like  that  of  the  eagle,  our  3'outh  is  renewed — 
we  feel  strong  as  the  horse  in  Homer — a  di- 
vine glow  permeates  our  being,  as  if  it  were 
the  subdued  spiritual  essence  of  caloric.  An 
intense  feeling  of  self — not  self-love,  mind 
}'e,  and  the  farthest  state  imaginable  in  this 
wide  world  from  selfishness — elevates  us  far 
up  above  the  clouds,  into  the  loftiest  regions 
of  the  sunny  blue,  and  we  seem  to  breathe  an 
atmosphere,  of  which  every  glorious  gulp  is 
inspiration.  Despondency  is  thrown  to  the 
dogs.  Despair  appears  in  his  true  colours,  a 
more  grotesque  idiot  than  Grimaldi,  and  we 
treat  him  with  a  guffaw.  All  ante-bath  diffi- 
culties seem  now — what  they  really  are — faci- 
lities of  which  we  are  by  far  too  much  elated 
to  avail  ourselves;  dangers  that  used  to  ap- 
pear appalling  are  felt  now  to  be  lulling  se- 
curities— obstacles,  like  mountains,  lying  in 
nur  way  of  life  as  we  walked  towards  the  tcm- 
\ 


pie  of  Apollo  or  Plutus,  we  smile  at  the  idea 
of  surmounting,  so  molehillish  do  they  look, 
and  we  kick  them  aside  like  an  old  footstool. 
Let  the  country  ask  us  for  a  scheme  to  pay  off 
the  national  debt — there  she  has  it:  do  you  re- 
quest us  to  have  the  kindness  to  leap  over  the 
moon — here  we  go ;  excellent  Mr.  Blackwood 
has  but  to  say  the  word,  and  a  ready-made 
Leading  Article  is  in  his  hand,  promotive  of 
the  sale  of  countless  numbers  of  "my  Maga- 
zine," and  of  the  happiness  of  countless  num- 
bers of  mankind.  We  feel — and  the  feeling 
proves  the  fact — as  bold  as  Joshua  the  son  of 
Nun — as  brave  as  David  the  son  of  Jesse — as 
wise  as  Solomon  the  son  of  David — and  as 
proud  as  Nebuchadnezzar  the  son  of  Nebopo- 
lazzar.  We  survey  our  image  in  the  mirror — 
and  think  of  Adam.  We  put  ourselves  into 
the  posture  of  the  Belvidere  Apollo. 

"Then  view  the  Lord  of  the  unerrinR  bow. 
The  Ood  of  life,  and  poesy,  and  lifiht, 
The  Sun  in  human  arms  array'd,  and  brow 
All  radiant  from  his  triumph  in  the  fipht. 
Thn  shaft  hath  just  been  shot — the  arrow  bright 
\Viih  an  immortal  vengeance  ;  in  his  eye 
And  nostril  beautiful  disdam,  and  might 
And  majesty  flash  their  full  lightninEs  by. 
Developing  in  that  one  glance  the  Deity." 

Up  four  flight  of  stairs  we  fly — for  the  bath  is 
in  the  double-sunk  story — ten  steps  at  abound 
— and  in  five  minutes  have  devoured  one  quar- 
tern loaf,  six  eggs,  and  a  rizzar,  washing  all 
over  with  a  punch-bowl  of  congou  and  a  tea- 
bowl  of  coffee, 

"  Enormous  bretikfast. 

Wild  without  rule  or  art :  Where  nature  plays 

Iler  virgin  fancies." 

.\nd  then,  leaning  back  on  our  Easy-chair,  we 
perform  an  exploit  beyond  the  reach  of  Euclid 
— why,  WK  SavABE  the  CintLK,  and  to  the 
utter  demolition  of  our  admirable  friend  Sir 
David  Brewster's  diatribe,  in  a  late  number  of 
the  Quiirtirly  Revinr,  on  the  indifference  of 
government  to  men  of  science,  chuckle  over 
our  nobly-won  order,  K.  C.  C.  B.,  Knight  Com- 
panion of  the  Cold  Bath. 

Many  analogies  between  the  seasons  of  the 
year  and  the  seasons  of  life,  being  natural,  have 
been  a  frequent  theme  of  poetry  in  all  countries. 
Had  the  gods  made  us  poetical,  we  should  now 
have  poured  forth  a  few  exquisite  illustrations 
of  some  that  are  very  affecting  and  impressive. 
It  has,  however,  often  been  felt  by  us,  that  not 
a  few  of  those  one  meets  with  in  the  lamenta- 
tions of  whey-faced  sentimentalists,  are  false 
or  fantastic,  and  do  equal  violence  to  all  the 
seasons,  both  of  the  year  and  of  life.  These 
gentry  have  been  especially  silly  upon  the  si- 
militude of  Old  Age  to  Winter.  Winter,  in 
external  nature,  is  not  the  season  of  decay. 
An  old  tree,  for  example,  in  the  very  dead  of 
winter,  as  it  is  figuratively  called,  though  bare 
of  leaves,  is  full  of  life.  The  sap,  indeed,  has 
sunk  down  from  his  bole  and  branches — 
down  into  his  toes  or  roots.  But  there  it  is, 
ready,  in  due  time,  to  reasccnd.  Not  so 
with  an  old  man — the  present  company  al- 
ways excepted  ; — his  sap  is  not  sunk  down  to 
his  toes,  but  much  of  it  is  gone  clean  out  of  the 
system — therefore,  individual  natural  objects  in 
Winter  are  not  analogically  emblematical  of 
people  stricken  in  years.  Far  less  does  the 
Winter  itself  of  the  year,  considered  as  a  sea- 


SOLILOQUY  ON  THE  SEASONS. 


259 


son,  resemble  the  old  age  of  life  considered  as 
a  season.  To  what  peculiarities,  pray,  in  the 
character  and  conduct  of  aged  gentlemen  in 
general,  do  rain,  sleet,  hail,  frost,  ice,  snow, 
winds,  blasts,  storms,  hurricanes,  and  occa- 
sional thunder  and  lightning,  bear  analogy  ? 
We  pause  for  a  repl}-.  Old  men's  heads,  it  is 
true,  are  frequently  white,  though  more  fre- 
quently bald,  and  their  blood  is  not  so  hot  as 
when  they  Avere  springalds.  But  though  there 
be  no  great  harm  in  likening  a  sprinkling  of 
white  hair  on  mine  ancient's  temples  to  the 
appearance  of  the  surface  of  the  earth,  flat  or 
mountainous,  after  a  slight  fall  of  snow — and 
indeed,  in  an  impassioned  state  of  mind,  we 
feel  a  moral  beauty  in  such  poetical  expres- 
sion as  "  sorrow  shedding  on  the  head  of 
youth  its  untimely  snows" — yet  the  natural 
propriety  of  such  an  image,  so  far  from  justi- 
fying the  assertion  of  a  general  analogy  be- 
tween Winter  and  Old  Age,  proves  that  the 
analogies  between  them  are  in  fact  very  few, 
and  felt  to  be  analogies  at  all,  only  when 
touched  upon  very  seldom,  and  very  slightly, 
and,  for  the  most  part,  very  vaguely — the  truth 
being,  that  they  scarcely  exist  at  all  in  reality, 
but  have  an  existence  given  to  them  by  the 
power  of  creative  passion,  which  often  works 
like  genius.  Shakspeare  knew  this  well — as 
he  knew  every  thing  else ;  and,  accordingly,  he 
gives  us  Seven  Ages  of  Life — not  Four  Sea- 
sons. But  how  finely  does  he  sometimes,  by 
the  mere  use  of  the  names  of  the  Seasons  of 
the  Year,  intensify  to  our  imagination  the 
mental  state  to  which  they  are  for  the  moment 
felt  to  be  analogous  ? — 

"  Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discontent 
Made  glorious  summer  by  the  sun  of  York  I" 

That  will  do.  The  feeling  he  wished  to  inspire, 
is  inspired  ;  and  the  further  analogical  images 
which  follow  add  nothing  to  our  feelings,  though 
they  show  the  strength  and  depth  of  his  into 
whose  lips  they  are  put.  A  bungler  would 
have  bored  us  with  ever  so  many  ramifications 
of  the  same  idea,  on  one  of  which,  in  our  wea- 
riness, we  might  have  wished  him  hanged  by 
the  neck  till  he  was  dead. 

We  are  an  Old  Man,  and  though  single  not 
singular;  yet,  without  vanity,  we  think  our- 
selves entitled  to  say,  that  we  are  no  more  like 
Winter,  in  particular,  than  we  are  like  Spring, 
Summer,  or  Autumn.  The  truth  is,  that  we 
are  much  less  like  any  one  of  the  Seasons, 
than  we  are  like  the  whole  Set.  Is  not  Spring 
sharp  1  So  are  we.  Is  not  Spring  snappish  1 
So  are  we.  Is  not  Spring  boisterous  1  So  are 
we.  Is  not  Spring  "beautiful  exceedingly 7" 
So  are  we.  Is  not  Spring  capricious  1  So  are 
we.    Is  not  Spring,  at  times,  the  gladdest,  gaj'- 


est,  gentlest,  mildest,  meekest,  modestest,  soft- 
est, sweetest,  and  sunniest  of  all  God's  crea- 
tures that  steal  along  the  face  of  the  earth  1  So 
are  we.  So  much  for  our  similitude — a  staring 
and  striking  one — to  Spring.  But  were  you 
to  stop  there,  what  an  inadequate  idea  would 
you  have  of  our  character !  For  only  ask  your 
senses,  and  they  will  tell  you  that  we  are  much 
liker  Summer.  Is  not  Summer  often  infernally 
hot  1  So  are  we.  Is  not  Summer  sometimes 
cool  as  its  own  cucumbers'?  So  are  we.  Does 
not  summer  love  the  shade?  So  do  we.  Is 
not  Summer,  nevertheless,  somewhat  "too 
much  i'  the  sun  1"  So  are  we.  Is  not  Sum- 
mer famous  for  its  thunder  and  lightning?  So 
are  we.  Is  not  summer,  when  he  chooses, 
still,  silent,  and  serene  as  a  sleeping  seraph  ? 
And  so  too — when  Christopher  chooses — are 
not  we  1  Though,  with  keen  remorse  we  con- 
fess it,  that,  when  suddenly  wakened,  we  are 
too  often  more  like  a  fury  or  a  fiend — and  that 
completes  the  likeness ;  for  all  who  know  a 
Scottish  Summer,  with  one  voice  exclaim — 
"  So  is  he  !"  But  our  portrait  is  but  half- 
drawn  ;  you  know  but  a  moiety  of  our  charac- 
ter. Is  Autumn  jovial  1 — ask  Thomson — so 
are  we.  Is  Autumn  melancholy? — ask  Alison 
and  Gillespie — so  are  we.  Is  Autumn  bright? 
— ask  the  woods  and  groves — so  are  we. 
Is  Autumn  rich? — ask  the  whole  world — 
so  are  we.  Does  Autumn  rejoice  in  the 
yellow  grain  and  the  golden  vintage,  that, 
stored  up  in  his  great  Magazine  of  Na- 
ture, are  lavishly  thence  dispensed  to  all  that 
hunger,  and  quench  the  thirst  of  the  nations? 
So  do  we.  After  that,  no  one  can  be  so  pur- 
and-bat-blind  as  not  see  that  North  is,  in  very 
truth.  Autumn's  gracious  self,  rather  than  his 
Likeness  or  Eidolon.    But 

"  Lo,  Winter  comes  to  rule  th'  inverted  year!" 

So  do  we. 

"  Sullen  and  sad,  with  all  his  rising  train — 
Vapours,  and  clouds,  and  storms  !" 

So  are  we.  The  great  author  of  the  "  Sea- 
sons" says,  that  Winter  and  his  train 

"Exalt  the  soul  to  solemn  thought, 
And  heavenly  musing!" 

So  do  we.  And,  "  lest  aught  less  great  should 
stamp  us  mortal,"  here  we  conclude  the  com- 
parison, dashed  off"  in  few  lines  by  the  hand  of 
a  great  master,  and  ask,  Is  not  North,  Winter? 
Thus,  listener  after  our  own  heart!  Thou  feel- 
est  that  we  are  imaged  aright  in  all  our  at- 
tributes neither  by  Spring,  nor  Summer,  nor 
Autumn,  nor  Winter;  but  that  the  character 
of  Christopher  is  shadowed  forth  and  reflected 
by  the  Entire  Year. 


260 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRiSTOPHER  NORTH. 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  THOMSON. 


PoETRT,  one  might  imagine,  must  be  full  of 
Snow-scenes.  If  so,  they  have  almost  all  dis- 
solved— melted  awa}'  from  our  memory — as 
the  transiencies  in  nature  do  which  they  cold- 
ly pictured.  Thomson's  "  Winter,"  of  course, 
we  do  not  include  in  our  obliviousness — and 
from  Cowper's  "  Task"  we  might  quote  many  a 
most  picturesque  Snow-piece.  But  have  frost 
and  snow  been  done  full  justice  to  by  them 
or  any  other  of  our  poets  1  They  have  been 
well  spoken  of  by  two — Southey  and  Coleridge 
— of  whose  most  poetical  compositions  respec- 
tively, "Thalaba"  and  the  "Ancient  Mariner," 
in  some  future  volume  we  may  dissert.  Thom- 
son's genius  does  not  so  often  delight  us  by 
exquisite  minute  touches  in  the  description  of 
nature  as  that  of  Cowper.  It  loves  to  paint 
on  a  great  scale,  and  to  dash  objects  ofi"  sweep- 
ingly  by  bold  strokes — such,  indeed,  as  have 
almost  always  distinguished  the  mighty  mas- 
ters of  the  lyre  and  the  rainbow.  Cowper  sets 
nature  before  your  eyes — Thomson  before  your 
imagination.  Which  do  you  prefer?  Both. 
Be  assured  that  both  poets  had  pored  nic;ht  and 
day  upon  her — in  all  her  asjiects — and  that 
she  had  revealed  herself  fully  to  both.  But 
they,  in  their  religion,  elected  ditTerent  modes  of 
worship — and  both  were  worthy  of  the  mighty 
mother.  In  one  mood  of  mind  we  love  Cowper 
best,  in  another  Thomson.  Sometimes  the  Sea- 
sons are  almost  a  Task,  and  sometimes  the  Task 
is  out  of  Season.  There  is  delightful  distinct- 
ness in  all  the  pictures  of  the  Bard  of  OIney — 
glorious  gloom  or  glimmer  in  most  of  those  of 
the  Bard  of  Ednam.  Cowper  paints  trees — 
Thomson  woods.  Thomsfm  paints,  in  a  few 
wondrous  lines,  rivers  from  source  to  sea,  like 
the  mighty  Burrampooter — Cowper,  in  many 
no  very  wondrous  lines,  brightens  up  one  bend 
of  a  stream,  or  awakens  our  fancy  to  the  mur- 
mur of  some  single  waterfall.  But  a  truce  to 
antithesis — a  deceptive  style  of  criticism — and 
see  how  Thomson  sings  of  Snow.  Why,  in 
the  following  lines,  as  well  as  Christopher 
North  in  his  Winter  Rhapsody — 

"Tlie  cherisli'd  fields 
Put  on  their  winter-robe  of  purest  wliite. 
'Tis  briL'litness  all ;  save  where  the  new  snow  melts 
Along  the  mazy  current." 

Nothing  can  be  more  vivid.    'Tis  of  the  nature 
of  an  ocular  spectrum. 

Here  is  a  touch  like  one  of  Cowper's.  Note 
the  beauty  of  the  epithet  "  brown,"  where  all 
that  is  motionless  is  while — 

"The  foodloss  wilds 
Tour  forth  their  broicn  inhabitants." 

That  one  word  proves  the  poet.  Does  it  not? 

The  entire  description  from  which  these  two 
sentences  are  selected  by  memory — a  critic 
you  may  always  trust  to — is  admirable;  ex- 
cept in  one  or  two  places  where  Thomson 
seems  to  have  striven  to  be  strongly  pathetic, 


and  where  he  seems  to  us  to  have  overshot  h'.s 
mark,  and  to  have  ceased  to  be  perfectly  Datu< 
ral.    Thus— 

"Droopinjr,  the  ox 
Stands  cover'd  o'er  with  snow,  and  then  demands 
The  fruit  of  all  his  toil." 

The  image  of  the  ox  is  as  good  as  possible. 
We  see  him,  and  could  paint  him  in  oils.  But, 
to  our  mind,  the  notion  of  his  "demanding  the 
fruit  of  all  his  toils" — to  which  we  freely  ac- 
knowledge the  worthy  animal  was  well  en- 
titled— sounds,  as  it  is  here  expressed,  rather 
fantastical.  Call  it  doubtful — for  Jemmy  was 
never  utterly  in  the  wrong  in  any  sentiment. 
Again— 

"The  Meatinp  kind 
Eye  the  l)leak  heaven,  and  ne.xt  the  glistening  earth, 
H'ith  looks  of  dumb  despair." 

The  second  line  is  perfect;  but  the  Ettrick  Shep- 
herd agreed  with  us — one  night  at  Ambrose's 
— that  the  third  was  not  quite  right.  Sheep, 
he  agreed  with  us,  do  not  deliver  themselves 
up  to  despair  under  any  circumstances ;  and 
here  Thomson  transferred  what  would  have 
been  his  own  feeling  in  a  corresponding  con- 
dition, to  animals  who  dreadlessly  follow  their 
instincts.  Thomson  redeems  himself  in  what 
iinmediately  succeeds — 

"Then,  sad  dispersed. 
Dig  for  the  wlther'd  herb  through  heaps  of  snow." 

For,  as  they  disperse,  they  do  look  very  sad — 
and  no  doubt  are  so ;  but  had  they  been  in 
despair,  they  would  not  so  readily,  and  con- 
stanily,  and  unifLfrmly,  and  successfully,  have 
taken  to  the  digging,  but  whole  flocks  had  per- 
ished. 

You  will  not,  we  are  confident,  be  angry 
with  us  for  quoting  a  few  lines  that  occur  soon 
after,  and  which  are  a  noble  example  of  the 
sweeping  style  of  description  which,  we  said 
above,  characterizes  the  genius  of  this  sublime 
poet : — 

"From  the  bellowine  east 
In  this  dire  season,  oft  the  wliirUvind's  wing 
Sweeps  up  the  burden  of  whole  wintry  plains 
At  one  wide  waft,  and  o'er  the  hapless  flocks. 
Hid  in  the  hollow  of  two  iieighlmuring  hills. 
The  billowy  tenijn'st  whelms;  till  upward  urged, 
The  valley  to  a  sliinins  mountain  swells, 
Tipp'd  with  a  wreath  high-curling  in  the  sky." 

Well  might  the  bard,  with  such  a  snow-storm 
in  his  imagination,  when  telling  the  shepherds 
to  be  kind  to  their  helpless  charge,  address 
them  in  a  language  which,  in  an  ordinary 
mood,  would  have  been  bombast.  "  Shep- 
herds," says  he, "  baffle  the  raging  year !"  How  1 
Why  merely  by  filling  their  pens  with  food. 
But  the  whirlwind  was  up — 

"  Far  oflTits  coming  ^roan'i," 

and  the  poet  was  inspired.  Had  he  not  beea 
so.  he  had  not  cried,  "  Baffle  the  raging  year;" 
and  if  you  be  not  so,  you  will  think  it  a  most 
absurd  expression. 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  THOMSON. 


361 


Did  you  ever  see  water  beginning  to  change 
itself  into  icel  Yes.  Then  try  to  describe 
the  sight.  Success  in  that  trial  will  prove  you 
a  poet.  People  do  not  prove  themselves  poets 
only  by  writing  long  poems.  A  line — two 
words — may  show  that  they  are  the  Muse's 
sons.  How  exquisitely  does  Burns  picture 
to  our  eyes  moonlight  water  undergoing  an 
ice-change ! 

"The  chilly  frost  beneath  the  silver  beam. 
Crept,  gently  crusting  o'er  the  glittering  stream  !" 

Thomson  does  it  with  an  almost  finer  spirit 
of  perception — or  conception — or  memory — 
or  whatever  else  you  choose  to  call  it;  for  our 
part,  we  call  it  genius — 

"  An  icy  gale,  oft  shiftins,  o'er  the  pool 
Breathes  a  blue  film,  and  in  its  mid  career 
Arrests  the  bickering  stream." 

And  afterwards,  having  frozen  the  entire 
stream  into  a  "  crystal  pavement,"  how  strong- 
ly doth  he  conclude  thus — 

"  The  whole  imprisoned  river  growls  below." 

Here,  again,  'tis  pleasant  to  see  the  peculiar 
genius  of  Cowper  contrasted  with  that  of 
Thomson.  The  gentle  Cowper  delighting,  for 
the  most  part,  in  tranquil  images — for  his  life 
was  passed  amidst  tranquil  nature;  the  enthu- 
siastic Thomson,  more  pleased  with  images  of 
power.     Cowper  says — 

"  On  the  flood. 
Indurated  and  fixed,  the  snowy  weight 
Lies  undissolved,  while  silenthj  beneath. 
And  unperceived,  the  current  steals  away." 

How  many  thousand  times  the  lines  we  are 
now  going  to  quote  have  been  quoted,  nobody 
.can  tell;  but  we  quote  them  once  more  for  the 
purpose  of  asking  you,  if  you  think  that  any 
one  poet  of  this  age  could  have  written  them — 
could  have  chilled  one's  very  blood  with  such 
intense  feeling  of  cold!     Not  one. 

"In  these  fell  regions,  in  Arzina  caught, 
And  to  the  stonii  deep  his  idle  ship 
Immediate  seal'd,  he,  with  his  hapless  crew, 
Each  full  exerted  at  his  several  task. 
Froze  into  statues  ;  to  the  cordarre  glued 
The  sailor,  and  the  pilot  to  the  helm  !" 

The  oftener — the  more  we  read  the  "  Winter" 
• — especially  the  last  two  or  three  hundred 
lines — the  angrier  is  our  wonder  with  Words- 
worth for  asserting  that  Thomson  owed  the 
national  popularity  that  his  "  Winter"  imme- 
diately won,  to  his  "  commonplace  sentiment- 
alities, and  his  vicious  style  !"  Yet  true  it  is, 
that  he  was  sometimes  guilty  of  both ;  and, 
but  for  his  transcendent  genius,  they  might 
have  obscured  the  lustre  of  his  fame.  But 
such  sins  are  not  very  frequent  in  the  "  Sea- 
sons," and  were  all  committed  in  the  glow  of 
that  fine  and  bold  enthusiasm,  which  to  his 
imagination  arrayed  all  things,  and  all  words, 
in  a  light  that  seemed  to  him  at  the  time  to  be 
poetry — though  sometimes  it  was  but  "false 
glitter."  Admitting,  then,  that  sometimes  the 
style  of  the  "  Seasons"  is  somewhat  too  florid, 
we  must  not  criticise  single  and  separate  pas- 
sages, without  holding  iu  mind  the  character 
of  the  poet's  genius  and  his  inspirations.  He 
luxuriates — he  revels — he  wantons — at  once 
with  an  imaginative  and  a  sensuous  delight  in 
nature.     Besides,  he  was  but  young;  and  his 


great  work  was  his  first.  He  had  not  philoso- 
phized his  poetical  language,  as  Wordsworth 
himself  has  done,  after  long  years  of  profound- 
est  study  of  the  laws  of  thought  and  speech. 
But  in  such  study,  while  much  is  gained,  may 
not  something  be  lost]  And  is  there  not  a 
charm  in  the  free,  flowing,  chartered  libertin- 
ism of  the  diction  and  versification  of  the 
"  Seasons" — above  all,  in  the  closing  strains 
of  the  "Winter,"  and  in  the  whole  of  the 
"  Hymn,"  which  inspires  a  delight  and  wonder 
seldom  breathed  upon  us — glorious  poem,  on 
the  whole,  as  it  is — from  the  more  measured 
march  of  the  "  Excursion  1" 

All  those  children  of  the  Pensive  Public  who 
have  been  much  at  school,  know  Thomson's 
description  of  the  wolves  among  the  Alps, 
Apennines,  and  Pyrenees, 

"Cruel  as  death,  and  hungry  as  the  grave! 
Burning  for  blood,  bony  and  gaunt  and  grim  ;"  &c. 

The  first  fifteen  lines  are  equal  to  any  thing  in 
the  whole  range  of  English  descriptive  poetry  ; 
but  the  last  ten  are  positively  bad.  Here  they 
are — 

"The  godlike  face  of  man  avails  him  nought! 

Even  beauty,  force  divine  !  at  whose  bright  glance 

The  generous  lion  stands  in  soften'd  gaze. 

Now  bleeds,  a  hapless  undistinguish'd  prey. 

But  if,  apprized  of  the  severe  attack, 

The  country  be  shut  up.  lured  by  the  scent, 

On  churchyard  drear,  (inhuman  to  relate  I) 

The  disappointed  prowlers  fall,  and  dig 

The  shrouded  body  from  the  grave  ;  o'er  which, 

Mix'd  with  foul  shades  and  frighted  ghosts,  they  howl !" 

Wild  beasts  do  not  like  the  look  of  the  human 
eye — they  think  us  ugly  customers — and  some- 
times stand  shill)--shallying  in  our  presence,  in 
an  awkward  but  alarming  attitude,  of  hunger 
mixed  with  fear.  A  single  wolf  seldom  or 
never  attacks  a  man.  He  cannot  stand  the 
face.  But  a  person  would  need  to  have  a 
godlike  face  indeed  to  terrify  therewith  an 
army  of  wolves  some  thousand  strong.  It 
would  be  the  height  of  presumption  in  any 
man,  though  beautiful  as  Moore  thought  Byron, 
to  attempt  it.     If  so,  then 

"The  godlike  face  of  man  avails  hiin  nought,'' 

is,  under  the  circumstances,  ludicrous.  Still 
more  so  is  the  trash  about  "  beauty,  force  di- 
vine !"  It  is  loo  much  to  expect  of  an  army 
of  wolves  some  thousand  strong,  "  and  hungry 
as  the  grave,"  that  they  should  all  fall  down 
on  their  knees  before  a  sweet  morsel  of  flesh 
and  blood,  merely  because  the  young  lady  was 
so  beautiful  that  she  might  have  sat  to  Sir 
Thomas  Lawrence  for  a  frontispiece  to  Mr. 
Watts's  Souvenir.  'Tis  all  stuff,  too,  about  the 
generous  lion  standing  in  softened  gaze  at 
beauty's  bright  glance.  True,  he  has  been 
known  to  look  with  a  certain  sort  of  soft  sur- 
liness upon  a  pretty  CafiVe  girl,  and  to  walk 
past  without  eating  her — but  simply  because, 
an  hour  or  two  before,  he  had  dined  on  a  Hot- 
tentot Venus.  The  secret  lay  not  in  his  heart, 
but  in  his  stomach.  Still  the  notion  is  a  popu- 
lar one,  and  how  exquisitely  has  Spenser 
changed  it  into  the  divinest  poetry  in  the  cha- 
racter of  the  attendant  lion  of 

"Heavenly  Una,  with  her  milkwhite  lamb!" 
But  Thomson,  so  far  from  making  poetry  of  it 
in  this  passage,  has  vulgarized  and  blurred  by 


262 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


it  the  natural  and  inevitable  emotion  of  terror 
and  pity.  Famished  wolves  hoivk-ing  up  the 
dead  is  a  dreadful  image — but  "  inhnmnn  to  re- 
late,^' is  not  an  expression  heavily  laden  with 
meaning;  and  the  sudden,  abrupt,  violent,  and, 
as  we  feel,  unnatural  introduction  of  ideas 
purely  superstitious,  at  the  close,  is  revolting, 
and  miserably  mars  the  terrible  truth. 

"  Jlix'd  with  foul  shades  and  frighted  ghosts,  they  howl." 

Why,  pray,  are  the  shades  foul,  and  the  ghosts 
only  frightened  1  And  wherein  lies  the  spe- 
cific difference  between  a  shade  and  a  ghost? 
Besides,  if  the  ghosts  were  frightened,  which 
they  had  good  reason  to  be,  why  w^re  not  they 
off]  We  have  frequently  read  of  their  wan- 
dering far  from  home,  on  occasions  when  they 
had  no  such  excellent  excuse  to  offer.  This 
line,  therefore,  we  have  taken  the  liberty  to 
erase  from  our  pocket-copy  of  the  Seasons — 
and  to  draw  a  few  keelavine  strokes  over  the 
rest  of  the  passage — beginning  with  "  man's 
godlike  face." 

Go  read,  then,  the  opening  of  "  Winter,"  and 
acknowledge  that,  of  all  climates  and  all  coun- 
tries, there  are  none  within  any  of  the  zones 
of  earth  that  will  bear  a  moment's  comparison 
with  those  of  Scotland.  Forget  the  people  if 
you  can,  and  think  only  of  the  region.  The 
lovely  Lowlands  undulating  away  into  the 
glorious  Highlands  —  the  spirit  of  sublimity 
and  the  spirit  of  beauty  one  and  the  same,  as 
it  blends  them  in  indissoluble  union.  Bury  us 
alive  in  the  dungeon's  gloom — incommunicable 
with  the  light  of  day  as  the  grave — it  could  not 
seal  our  eyes  to  the  sight  of  Scotland.  We 
should  see  it  still  by  rising  or  by  setting  suns. 
Whatever  blessed  scene  we  chose  to  call  on 
would  become  an  instant  apparition.  Nor  in 
that  thick-ribbed  vault  would  our  eyes  be  deaf 
to  her  rivers  and  her  seas.  We  should  say 
our  prayers  to  their  music,  and  to  the  voice  of 
the  thunder  on  a  hundred  hills.  We  stand 
now  in  no  need  of  senses.  They  are  waxing 
dim — but  our  spirit  may  continue  to  brighten 
long  as  the  light  of  love  is  allowed  to  dwell 
therein,  ihcnce  proceeding  over  nature  like  a 
victorious  morn. 

There  are  many  beautiful  passages  in  the 
poets  about  Raix  ;  but  who  ever  sang  its  ad- 
vent so  passionately  as  in  these  strains  ? — 

"  The  pfTiislvp  south 
Warms  the  wide  air,  and  o'er  the  void  of  heaven 
Breathes  the  l>ig  clouds  with  vernal  sbowers  diatunt. 
At  first  a  dusky  wreath  they  seem  to  rise, 
Scarce  stainins  ether  ;  hut  hy  swift  desrees. 
In  heaps  on  heaps,  the  doulilinc  vapour  sails 
Monu  the  loaded  sky,  and  niincline  deep 
Sits  on  th'  horizon  round  a  sellled  gloom  : 
Not  such  as  wintry  sloruis  on  mortals  shed, 
Oppressing  life  ;  l)ut  lovely,  penile,  kind, 
And  full  of  every  hop*  and  every  joy. 
The  wish  of  nature.     Gradual  sinks  the  breeze 
Into  a  perfect  calm,  that  niu  a  breath 
Is  heard  to  quiver  thniueh  the  closinu  woods. 
Or  rustlinu  turn  the  niany-lwinklinc  leaves 
Of  aspen  tall.     Th"  uncurling  tloorls,  ditfused 
In  classy  breath,  seem  throuiih  delusive  lapse 
Foreelful  of  their  course.     'Tis  silence  all 
And  pleasine  expectation.     Herds  and  flocks 
Drop  the  dry  spris,  and,  mute-imploring,  eye 
The  falling  verdure :" 

All  that  follows  is,  you  know,  as  good — bet- 
ter it  cannot  be — till  wc  come  to  the  close,  the 
perfection  of  poetry,  and  then  sally  out  into 


the  shower,  and  join  the  hymn  of  earth  to 
heaven — 

"  The  stealing  shower  is  scarce  to  patter  heard 
By  such  as  wander  through  the  forest  walks, 
Beneath  th'  umbrageous  mullilude  of  leaves. 
But  who  can  hold  the  shade,  while  heaven  descends 
In  universal  bounty,  shedding  herbs, 
And  fruits,  and  flowers,  on  Nature's  ample  lapt 
Swift  Fancy  fired  anticipates  their  growth  ; 
And,  while'the  milky  nutriment  distils, 
Beholds  the  kindling  country  colour  round." 

Thomson,  they  say,  was  too  fond  of  epithets. 
Not  he  indeed.  Strike  out  one  of  the  many 
there — and  your  sconce  shall  feel  the  crutch. 
A  poet  less  conversant  with  nature  would  have 
feared  to  say,  "  sits  on  the  horizon  round  a 
settled  gloom,"  or  rather,  he  would  not  have  seen 
or  thought  it  was  a  sealed  gloom;  and,  there- 
fore, he  could  not  have  said — 

"  But  lovely,  gentle,  kind. 

And  full  of  every  hope  and  every  joy, 

The  vish  of  A'ature." 

Leigh  Hunt — most  vivid  of  poets,  and  most 
cordial  of  critics — somewhere  finely  speaks  of 
a  ghastly  line  in  a  poem  of  Keates' — 

"  Riding  to  Florence  with  the  murder'd  man ;" 

that  is,  the  man  about  to  be  murdered — imagi- 
nation conceiving  as  one,  doom  and  death. 
Equally  great  are  the  words — 

"  Herds  and  flocks 
Drop  the  dry  spriii,  and,  mute-imploring,  eye 
The  falling  verdure." 

The  verdure  is  seen  in  the  shower — to  be  the 
very  shower — by  the  poet  at  least — perhaps  by 
the  cattle,  in  their  thirsty  hunger  forgetful  of 
the  brown  ground,  and  swallowing  the  dropping 
herbage.  The  birds  had  not  been  so  sorely 
distressed  by  the  drought  as  the  beasts,  and 
therefore  the  poet  speaks  of  them,  not  as  re- 
lieved from  misery,  but  as  visited  with  glad- 
ness— 

"Hu-h'd  in  short  suspense. 
The  plumy  people  streak  their  wines  with  oil. 
To  throw  the  lucid  moisture  trickling  olT, 
And  wail  ih'  approaching  sign,  to  strike,  at  once, 
Into  the  general  choir." 

Then,  and  not  till  then,  the  humane  poet  be- 
thinks him  of  the  insensate  earth — insensate 
not;  for  beast  and  bird  being  satisfied,  and 
lowing  and  singing  in  their  gratitude,  so  do  the 
places  of  their  habitation  yearn  for  the  bless- 
ing— 

"E'en  mountams,  vales, 
And  forests,  seem,  impatient,  to  demand 
The  promised  sweetness." 

The  rtUsious  Poet  then  speaks  for  his  kind 
— and  says  devoutly — 

"  Man  superior  walks 
Amid  the  glad  creation,  musing  praise, 
.\nd  looking  lively  gratitude." 

In  that  mood  he  is  juslified  to  feast  his  fancj 
with  images  of  the  beauty  as  well  as  the 
bounty  of  nature;  and  genius  in  one  line  has 
concentrated  them  all — 

"Beholds  the  kindling  country  colour  round." 
'Tis  "an  a'  day's  rain" — and  "the  well-show- 
ered earth  is  deep-enriched  with  vegetable  life." 
And  what  kind  of  an  evening  1  M'e  have  seen 
many  such — and  every  succeeding  one  more 
beautiful,  more  glorious  to  our  eyes  than 
another — because  of  these  words  in  which  the 
beauty  and  the  glory  of  one  and  all  are  en- 
shrined— 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  THOMSON. 


263 


"  Till,  in  the  western  sky,  the  downward  sun 
Looks  out,  effulgent,  from  amid  the  flush 
Of  broken  clouds,  eay-shifting  to  his  beam. 
The  rapid  radianre,  instantaneous,  strikes 
Th'  illumined  mountain,  through  the  forest  streams, 
Shakes  on  the  floods,  and  in  a  yellow  mist. 
Far  smoking  o'er  th'  interminable  plain. 
In  twinkling  myriads  lights  the  dewy  gems. 
Moist,  bright,  and  green,  the  landscape  laughs  around. 
Full  swell  the  woods  ;  their  every  music  wakes, 
Mi.\'d  in  wild  concert  with  the  warbling  brooks 
Increased,  the  distant  bleatings  of  the  hills. 
And  hollow  lows  responsive  from  the  vales, 
Whence,  blending  all,  the  sweeten'd  zephyr  springs. 
Meantime,  refracted  from  yon  eastern  cloud, 
Bestriding  earth,  the  grand  ethereal  bow 
Shoots  up  immense  ;  and  every  hue  unfolds 
In  fair  proportion,  running  from  the  red 
To  where  the  violet  fades  into  the  sky." 

How  do  you  like  our  recitation  of  that  sur- 
passing strain  1  Every  shade  of  feeling  should 
have  its  shade  of  sound — eveiy  pause  its  si- 
lence. But  these  must  all  come  and  go,  un- 
taught, unbidden,  from  the  fulness  of  the  heart. 
Then,  indeed,  and  not  till  then,  can  words  be 
said  to  be  set  to  music — to  a  rekatidl  sing-song. 

The  Mighty  Minstrel  recited  old  Ballads  with 
a  war-like  march  of  sound  that  made  one's 
heart  leap,  while  his  usually  sweet  smile  was 
drawn  in,  and  disappeared  among  the  glooms 
that  sternly  gathered  about  his  lowering  brows 
and  gave  his  whole  aspect  a  most  heroic  cha- 
racter. Rude  verses,  that  from  ordinary  lips 
would  have  been  almost  meaningless,  from 
his  came  inspired  with  passion.  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  who  said  that  Chevy  Chace  roused 
him  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet,  had  he  heard 
Sir  Walter  Scott  recite  it,  would  have  gone 
distracted.  Yet  the  "  best  judges  "  said  he  mur- 
dered his  own  poetry — we  say  about  as  much 
as  Homer.  Wordsworth  recites  his  own  Poe- 
try (catch  him  reciting  any  other)  magnificent- 
ly— while  his  eyes  seem  blind  to  all  outward 
objects,  like  those  of  a  somnambulist.  Cole- 
ridge was  the  sweetest  of  sing-songers — and 
his  silver  voice  "  warbled  melody."  Ne.xt  to 
theirs,  we  believe  our  own  recitation  of  Poetry 
to  be  the  most  impressive  heard  in  modern 
times,  though  we  cannot  deny  that  the  leathern- 
eared  have  pronounced  it  detestable,  and  the 
long-eared  ludicrous;  their  delight  being  in 
what  is  called  Elocution,  as  it  is  taught  by 
player-folk. 

Oh,  friendly  reader  of  these  our  Recreations  ! 
thou  needst  not  to  be  told — yet  in  love  let  us 
fell  thee — that  there  are  a  thousand  ways  of 
dealing  in  description  with  Nature,  so  as  to 
make  her  poetical ;  but  sentiment  there  always 
must  be,  else  it  is  stark  nought.  You  may  in- 
fuse the  sentiment  by  a  single  touch — by  a  ray 
of  light  no  thicker,  nor  one  thousandth  part  so 
thick,  as  the  finest  needle  ever  silk-threaded 
oy  lady's  finger;  or  you  may  dance  it  in  with 
a  flutter  of  sunbeams ;  or  you  may  splash  it 
.n  as  with  a  gorgeous  cloud-stain  stolen  from 
sunset :  or  you  may  bathe  it  in  with  a  shred  of 
the  rainbow.  Perhaps  the  highest  power  of 
all  possessed  by  the  sons  of  song,  is  to  breathe 
it  in  with  the  breath,  to  let  it  slip  in  with  the 
light,  of  the  common  day  ! 

Then  some  poets  there  are,  who  show  yoit  a 
scene  all  of  a  sudden,  by  ineans  of  a  few 
magical  words— ^just  as  if  you  opened  your 
eyes  at  their  bidding — and  in  place  of  a  blank, 
a  world.     Others,  again,  as  good  and  as  great, 


create  their  world  gradually  before  your  eyes, 
for  the  delight  of  your  soul,  that  loves  to  gaze 
on  the  grovving  glory;  but  delight  is  lost  in 
wonder,  and  you  know  that  they,  too,  are  war- 
locks. Some  heap  image  upon  image,  piles 
of  imagery  on  piles  of  imagery,  as  if  ihey  were 
ransacking  and  robbing  and  red-reavering 
earth,  sea,  and  sky;  yet  all  things  there  are 
consentaneous  with  one  grand  design,  which, 
when  consummated,  is  a  Whole  that  seems  to 
typify  the  universe.  Others  give  }-ou  but  frag- 
ments— but  such  as  awaken  imaginations  of 
beauty  and  of  power  transcendent,  like  that 
famous  Torso.  And  some  show  you  Nature 
glimmering  beneath  a  veil  which,  nunlike,  she 
has  religiously  taken  ;  and  then  call  not  Nature 
ideal  only  in  that  holy  twilight,  for  then  it  is 
that  she  is  spiritual,  and  we  who  belong  to  her 
feel  that  we  shall  live  for  ever. 

Thus — and  in  other  wondrous  ways — the 
great  poets  are  the  great  painters,  and  so  are 
they  the  great  musicians.  But  how  they  are 
so,  some  other  time  may  we  tell;  suffice  it 
now  to  say,  that  as  we  listen  to  the  mighty 
masters — "  sole  or  responsive  to  each  other's 
voice  " — 

"  Now,  'tis  like  all  instruments. 
Now  like  a  lonely  lute  ; 
And  now  'tis  like  an  angel's  song 
That  bids  the  heavens  be  mute  1" 

Why  will  so  manj'  myriads  of  men  and 
women,  denied  by  nature  "the  vision  and  the 
faculty  divine,"  persist  in  the  delusion  that 
they  are  poetizing,  while  they  are  but  versify- 
ing "  this  bright  and  breathing  world  ?"  They 
see  truly  not  even  the  outward  objects  of  sight. 
But  of  all  the  rare  affinities  and  relationships 
in  Nature,  visible  or  audible  to  Fine-ear-and- 
Far-eye  the  Poet,  not  a  whisper — not  a  glimpse 
have  they  ever  heard  or  seen,  any  more  than 
had  they  been  born  deaf-blind. 

They  paint  a  landscape,  but  nothing  "prates 
of  their  whereabouts,"  while  they  were  sitting 
on  a  tripod,  with  their  paper  on  their  knees, 
drawing — their  breath.  For,  in  the  front 
ground  is  a  castle,  against  which,  if  you  offer 
to  stir  a  step,  you  infallibly  break  your  head, 
unless  providentially  stopped  by  that  extra- 
ordinary vegetable-looking  substance,  perhaps 
a  tree,  growing  bolt  upright  out  of  an  inter- 
mediate stone,  that  has  wedged  itself  in  long 
after  there  had  ceased  to  be  even  standing- 
room  in  that  strange  theatre  of  nature.  But 
down  from  "  the  swelling  instep  of  a  moun- 
tain's foot,"  that  has  protruded  itself  through  a 
wood,  while  the  body  of  the  mountain  prudent- 
ly remains  in  the  extreme  distance,  descends 
on  you,  ere  you  have  recovered  from  your  un- 
expected encounter  with  the  old  Roman  cement, 
an  unconscionable  cataract.  There  stands  a 
deer  or  goat,  or  rather  some  beast  with  horns, 
"strictly  anonymous,"  placed  for  effect,  con- 
trary to  all  cause,  in  a  place  Avhere  it  seems 
as  uncertain  how  he  got  in  as  it  is  certain  that 
he  never  can  get  out  till  he  becomes  a  hippo- 
griff. 

The  true  poet,  again,  has  such  potent  eyes, 
that  when  he  lets  down  the  lids,  he  sees  ju.st 
as  well,  perhaps  better  than  when  they  were 
up;  for  in  that  deep,  earnest,  inward  gaze,  the 
fluctuating    sea   of   scenery    subsides    Into  h 


264 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


settled  calm,  vhere  all  is  harmony  as  -n-ell  as 
beaut}' — order  as  well  as  peace.  What  thoiij^h 
he  have  been  fated,  through  youth  and  man- 
hood, to  dwell  in  city  smoke?  His  childhood 
—his  boyhood — -were  overhung  with  trees, and 
through  its  heart  went  the  murmur  of  waters. 
Then  it  is,  we  verily  believe,  that  in  all  poets, 
is  filled  with  images  up  to  the  brim.  Imagina- 
tion's treasury.  Genius,  growing,  and  grown 
■up  to  maturity,  is  still  a  prodigal.  But  he 
draws  on  the  Bank  of  Youth.  His  bills,  whe- 
ther at  a  short  or  long  dale,  are  never  dis- 
honoured ;  naj',  made  payable  at  sight,  they 
are  as  good  as  gold.  Nor  cares  that  Bank  for 
a  run,  made  even  in  a  panic,  for  besides  bars 
and  billets,  and  wedges  and  blocks  of  gold, 
there  are,  unappreciable  beyond  the  riches 
which  against  a  time  of  trouble 

"The  Siiltaun  liides  in  his  ancestral  tombs," 
jewels  and  diamonds  sufficient 

"To  ransom  great  kings  from  captivity." 

We  sometimes  think  that  the  power  of  paint- 
ing Nature  to  the  life,  whether  in  her  real  or 
idcAl  beauty,  (both  belonging  to ///>,)  is  seldom 
evolved  to  its  utmost,  until  the  mind  possess- 
ing it  is  withdrawn  in  the  body  from  all  rural 
enviroiniieni.  It  has  not  been  so  with  Words- 
worth, but  it  was  so  with  Milton.  The  descrip- 
tive poetry  in  Comus  is  indeed  rich  as  rich 
may  be.  but  certainly  not  so  great,  perhaps 
not  so  beautiful,  as  that  in  Paradise  Lost. 

It  would  seem  to  be  so  with  all  of  us,  small 
as  well  as  great ;  and  were  vc — Christopher 
North — to  compose  a  poem  on  Loch  Skene, 
two  thousand  feet  or  so  above  the  level  of  the 
sea,  and  some  miles  from  a  house,  we  should 
desire  to  do  so  in  a  metropolitan  cellar.  De- 
sire springs  from  separation.  The  spirit  seeks 
to  unite  itself  to  the  beauty  it  loves,  the  gran- 
deur it  admires,  the  suliliinity  it  almost  fears; 
and  all  these  being  o'er  the  hills  and  far  wa_v. 
or  on  the  hills  cloud-hidden,  wh)'  it — the  spirit 
— makes  itself  wings — or  rather  wings  grow  up 
of  themselves  in  its  passion,  and  naturcwards 
it  flies  like  a  dove  or  an  ea^le.  People  looking 
at  us  believe  us  present,  but  they  never  were 
so  far  mistaken  in  their  lives;  for  in  the  Sea- 
mew  are  we  sailing  with  the  tide  through  the 
moonshine  on  Loch  Etive — or  hanging  o'er 
the  £rulf  of  peri4  on  the  bosom  of  Skyroura. 

We  are  sitting  now  in  a  dusky  den — with 
our  eyes  shut — but  we  see  the  whole  High- 
lands. Our  Highland  Mountains  are  of  the 
best  possible  magnitude — ranging  between  two 
and  four  thousand  feet  high — and  then  in  what 
multitudes  !  The  more  familiar  you  become' 
with  them,  the  mightier  they  appear — and  you 
feel  that  it  is  all  sheer  folly  to  seek  to  dwindle 
or  dwarf  them,  by  comparing  them  as  they  rise 
before  your  eyes  with  your  imagination  of 
Mont  Blanc  and  those  eternal  glaciers.  If  you 
can  bring  them  under  your  command,  you  are 
indeed  a  sovereign — and  have  a  noble  set  of 
suhjecij.  In  some  weather  they  are  of  any 
height  you  choose  to  put  upon  them — say 
thirty  thousand  feet — in  other  states  of  the  at- 
mosphere you  think  you  could  walk  over  their 
summits  and  down  into  the  region  beyond  in 
;n  an  hour.     We  have  seen  Cruachan,  during 


a  whole  black  day,  swollen  into  such  enormous 
bulk,  that  Loch  Awe  looked  like  but  a  sullen 
river  at  its  base,  her  woods  bushes,  and  Kil- 
churn  no  bigger  than  a  cottage.  The  whole 
visible  scene  was  but  he  and  his  shadow.  They 
seemed  to  make  the  day  black,  rather  than  the 
day  to  make  them  so — and  at  nightfall  he  took 
wider  and  loftier  possession  of  the  sky — the 
clouds  congregated  round  without  hiding  his 
summit,  on  which  seemed  to  twinkle,  like 
earth-lighted  fires,  a  few  uncertain  stars.  Rain 
drives  you  into  a  shieling — and  you  sit  there 
for  an  hour  or  two  in  eloquent  confabulation 
with  the  herdsman,  your  English  against  his 
Gaelic.  Out  of  the  door  you  creep — and  gaze 
in  astonishment  on  a  new  world.  The  mist  is 
slowly  rolling  up  and  away  in  long  lines  of 
clouds,  preserving,  perhaps,  a  beautiful  regu- 
larity on  their  ascension  and  evanescence,  and 
between  them 

"  Tier  above  tier,  a  wooded  theatre 
or  stateliest  view," 

or  clifT-galleries  with  strange  stone  images  sit- 
ting up  aloft;  and  yet  your  eyes  have  not 
reached  the  summits,  nor  will  they  reach  them, 
till  all  that  vapoury  ten-mile-long  mass  dis- 
solve, or  be  scattered,  and  then  you  start  to  see 
them,  as  if  therein  had  been  but  their  bases, 
The  MniNTAiNs,  with  here  and  there  a  peak 
illumined,  reposing  in  the  blue  serene  that 
smiles  as  if  all  the  while  it  had  been  above 
reach  of  the  storm. 

The  power  of  Egoism  accompanies  us  into 
solitude ;  nay,  is  even  more  life-pervading  there 
than  in  the  hum  of  men.  There  the  stocks 
and  stones  are  more  impressible  than  those  we 
sometimes  stumble  on  in  human  society,  and, 
moulded  at  our  will,  take  what  shape  we  choose 
to  give  them;  the  trees  follow  our  footsteps, 
though  our  lips  be  mute,  and  we  may  have  left 
at  home  our  fiddle — more  potent  we  in  our  ac- 
tuality than  the  fabled  Orpheus.  Be  hushed, 
ye  streams,  and  listen  unto  Christopher!  Be 
changed,  ye  clouds,  and  attentive  unto  North  ! 
And  at  our  bidding  silent  the  cataract  on  the 
clilf — the  thunder  on  the  sky.  The  sea  beholds 
us  on  the  shore — and  his  one  huge  frown 
transformed  into  a  multitudinous  smile,  he 
turns  tldwing  atl'eclions  towards  us  along  the 
golden  sands — and  in  a  fluctuating  hindrance 
of  lovely  foam-wreaths  envelopes  our  feet ! 

To  return  to  Thomson.  Wordsworth  labours 
to  prove,  in  one  of  his  "  postlitninious  pre- 
f;ices,"  that  the  true  spirit  of  the  "Seasons," 
till  long  after  their  publication,  was  neither 
felt  nor  understood.  In  the  conduct  of  his 
argument  he  does  not  shine.  That  the  poem 
was  at  once  admired  he  is  forced  to  admit;  but 
then,  according  to  him,  the  admiration  was 
false  and  hollow — it  was  regarded  but  with  that 
wonder  which  i-;  the  "  natural  product  of  igno- 
rance." After  having  observed  that,  excepting 
the  "Nocturnal  Reverie"  of  Lady  Winchilsea, 
and  a  passage  or  two  in  the  "  Windsor  Forest" 
of  Pope,  the  poetrj'  of  the  period  interveninST 
between  the  publication  of  the  "  Paradise  Lost" 
and  the  "Seasons,"  does  not  contain  a  single 
new  image  of  external  natufe,  he  proceeds  to 
call  the  once  w<»ll-known  verses  of  Dryden  in 
the  "  Indian  Emperor,"  descriptive  of  the  hash 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  THOMSON. 


265 


of  night,  "vague,  bombastic,  and  senseless," 
and  Pope's  celebrated  translation  of  the  moon- 
light scene  in  the  "  Iliad,"  altogether  "  absurd" 
— and  then,  without  ever  once  dreaming  of 
any  necessity  of  showing  them  to  be  so,,  or 
even,  if  he  had  succeeded  in  doing  so,  of  the 
utter  illogicality  of  any  argument  drawn  from 
their  failure  to  establish  the  point  he  is  ham- 
mering at,  he  all  at  once  says,  with  the  most 
astounding  assumption,  "having  shown  that 
much  of  what  his  [Thomson's]  biographer 
deemed  genuine  admiration,  must,  in  fact,  have 
been  blind  wonderment — how  is  the  rest  to  be 
accounted  fori"  "Having  shorcn"  .' !  !  Why, 
he  has  shown  nothing  but  his  own  arrogance 
in  supposing  that  his  mere  ipse  dixit  will  be 
taken  by  the  whole  world  as  proof  that  Dryden 
and  Pope  had  not  the  use  of  their  eyes. 
'•  Strange  to  think  of  an  enthusiast,"  he  says, 
(alluding  to  the  passage  in  Pope's  translation 
of  the  "  Iliad,")  "  as  may  have  been  the  case 
with  thousands,  reciting  those  verses  under  the 
cope  of  a  moonlight  sky,  without  having  his 
raptures  in  the  least  disturbed  by  a  suspicion 
of  their  absurdity !"  We  are  no  enthusiasts — 
we  are  far  too  old  for  that  folly;  but  we  have 
eyes  in  our  head,  though  sometimes  rather  dim 
and  motey,  and  as  good  eyes,  too,  as  Mr. 
Wordsworth,  and  we  often  have  recited — and 
hope  often  will  recite  them  again — Pope's  ex- 
quisite lines,  not  only  without  any  "suspicion 
of  their  absurdity,"  but  with  the  conviction  of 
a  most  devout  belief  that,  with  some  little 
vagueness  perhaps,  and  repetition,  and  a  word 
here  and  there  that  might  be  altered  for  the 
better,  the  description  is  most  beautiful.  But 
grant  it  miserable — grant  all  Mr.  Wordsworth 
has  so  dictatorially  uttered — and  what  then] 
Though  descriptive  poetry  did  not  flourish  dur- 
ing the  period  between  "  Paradise  Lost"  and 
the  "  Seasons,"  nevertheless,  did  not  mankind 
enjoy  the  use  of  their,  seven  senses  1  Could 
they  not  see  and  hear  without  the  aid  of  those 
oculists  and  aurists,  the  poets?  Were  all  the 
shepherds  and  agriculturists  of  England  and 
Scotland  blind  and  deaf  to  all  the  sights  and 
sounds  of  nature,  and  all  the  gentlemen  and 
ladies  too,  from  the  king  and  queen  upon  the 
throne,  to  the  lowest  of  their  subjects  ?  Very 
like  a  whale !  Causes  there  were  why  poetry 
flowed  during  that  era  in  another  channel  than 
that  of  the  description  of  natural  scenery  ;  and 
if  it  flowed  too  little  in  that  channel  then — 
v/hich  is  true — equally  is  it  true  that  it  flows 
now  in  it  too  much — especially  among  the 
poets  of  the  Lake  School,  to  the  neglect,  not 
of  sentiments  and  affections — for  there  they 
excel — but  of  strong  direct  human  passion  ap- 
plied to  the  stir  and  tumult — of  which'  the  in- 
terest is  profound  and  eternal — of  all  the  great 
afiairs  of  human  life.  But  though  the  descrip- 
tive poets  during  the  period  between  Milton 
and  Thomson  were  few  and  indifferent,  no 
reason  is  there  in  this  world  for  imagining, 
■with  Mr.  Wordsworth,  that  men  had  forgotten 
both  the  heavens  and  the  earth.  They  had 
not — nor  was  the  wonder  with  which  they 
must  have  regarded  the  great  shows  of  nature, 
the  "natural  product  of  ignorance,"  then,  any 
more  than  it  is  now,  or  ever  was  during  a 
civilized  age.  If  we  be  right  in  saying  so — 
34 


then  neither  could  the  admiration  which  the 
"Seasons,"  on  the  first  appearance  of  that  glo- 
rious poem,  excited,  be  said,  with  any  truth,  to 
have  been  but  a  "wonder,  the  natural  product 
of  ignorance." 

Mr.  Wordsworth  having  thus  signally  failed 
in  his  attempt  to  show  that  "much  of  what 
Thomson's  biographer  deemed  genuine  admi- 
ration, must,  in  fact,  have  been  blind  wonder- 
ment," let  us  accompany  him  in  his  equally 
futile  efforts  to  show  "  how  the  rest  is  to  be 
accounted  for."  He  attempts  to  do  so  after 
this  fashion  : — "  Thomson  was  fortunate  in  the 
very  title  of  his  poem,  which  seemed  to  bring 
it  home  to  the  prepared  sympathies  of  every 
one;  in  the  next  place,  notwithstanding  his 
high  powers,  he  writes  a  vicious  style ;  and 
his  false  ornaments  ai*e  exactly  of  that  kind 
which  would  be  most  likely  to  strike  the  un- 
discerning.  He  likewise  abounds  with  senti- 
mental commonplaces,  that,  from  the  manner 
in  which  they  were  brought  forward,  bore  an 
imposing  air  of  novelty.  In  any  well-used 
copy  of  the  '  Seasons,'  the  book  generally 
opens  of  itself  with  the  Rhapsody  on  Love,  or 
with  one  of  the  stories,  perhaps  of  Damon  and 
Musidora.  These  also  are  prominent  in  our 
Collections  of  Extracts,  and  are  the  parts  of 
his  work  which,  after  all,  were  probably  most 
efficient  in  first  recommending  the  author  to 
general  notice." 

Thomson,  in  one  sense,  was  fortunate  in  the 
title  of  his  poem.  But  a  great  poet  like  Words- 
worth might — nay,  ought  to  have  chosen  ano- 
ther word — or  have  given  of  that  word  a  loftier 
explanation,  when  applied  to  Thomson's  choice 
of  the  Seasons  for  the  subject  of  his  immortal 
poem.  Genius  made  that  choice — not  fortune. 
The  "  Seasons"  are  not  merely  the  "  h</e"  of 
his  poem — they  are  his  poem,  and  his  poem  is 
the  Seasons.  But  how,  pray,  can  Thomson  be 
said  to  have  been  fortunate  in  the  title  or  the 
subject  either  of  his  poem,  in  the  sense  that 
Mr.  Wordsworth  means  ?  Why,  according  to 
him,  people  knew  little,  and  cared  less,  about 
the  Seasons.  "The  art  of  seeing  had  in  some 
measure  been  learned!"  That  he  allows — but 
that  was  all — and  that  all  is  but  little — and 
surely  far  from  being  enough  to  have  disposed 
people  in  general  to  listen  to  the  strains  of  a 
poet  who  painted  nature  in  all  her  moods,  and 
under  all  her  aspects.  Thomson,  then,  we  say, 
was  either  most  unfortunate  in  the  title  of  his 
poem,  or  there  was  not  with  the  many  that  in- 
difference to,  and  ignorance  of  natuial  scenery, 
on  which  Mr.  Wordsworth  so  strenuously  in- 
sists as  part,  or  rather  whole,  of  his  preceding 
argument. 

The  title,  Mr.  Wordsworth  says,  seemed  "to 
bring  the  poem  home  to  the  prepared  sympathies 
of  every  one  !"  What !  to  the  prepared  sym- 
pathies of  those  who  had  merely,  in  some 
measure,  learned  the  "  art  of  seeing,"  and  who 
had  "paid,"  as  he  says  in  another  sentence, 
"  little  accurate  attention  to  the  appearance  of 
nature !"  Never  did  the  weakest  mind  ever 
fall  into  grosser  contradictions  than  does  here 
one  of  the  strongest,  in  vainly  labouring  to 
bolster  up  a  silly  assertion,  which  he  has  des 
perately  ventured  on  from  a  most  mistaken 
conceit  that  it  was  necessary  to  account  for  the 


266 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


kind  of  reception  which  his  own  poetry  had 
met  with  from  the  present  age.  The  truth  is, 
that  had  Mr.  Wordsworth  known,  when  he  in- 
dited these  luckless  and  helpless  sentences, 
that  his  own  poetry  was,  in  the  best  sense  of 
the  word,  a  thousand  times  more  popular  than 
he  supposed  it  to  be — and.  Heaven  be  praised, 
for  the  honour  of  the  age,  it  was  and  is  so! — 
never  had  they  been  written,  nor  had  he  here 
and  elsewhere  laboured  to  prove,  that  in  pro- 
portion as  poetry  is  bad,  or  rather  as  it  is  no 
poetr)'^  at  all,  is  it,  has  been,  and  always  will 
be,  more  and  more  popular  in  the  age  con- 
temporary with  the  writer.  That  Thomson, 
in  the  Seasons,  sotnctimes  writes  a  vicious  style, 
may  be  true,  but  it  is  not  true  that  he  often 
does  so.  His  style  has  its  faults,  no  doubt,  and 
some  of  them  inextricably  interwoven  with 
the  web  of  his  composition.  It  is  a  dangerous 
style  to  imitate — especially  to  dunces.  But 
its  virtue  is  divine :  and  that  divine  virtue,  even 
in  this  low  world  of  ours,  wins  admiration 
more  surely  and  widely  than  earthly  virc — be  it 
in  words,  thoughts,  feelings,  or  actions — is  a 
creed  that  we  will  not  relinquish  at  the  beck 
or  bidding  even  of  the  great  author  of  the 
"Excursion." 

That  many  did — do — and  will  admire  the  bad 
or  indifferent  passages  in  the  Seasons — won  by 
their  false  glitter  or  commonplace  sentimental- 
ism,  is  no  doubt  true:  but  the  delight,  though 
as  intense  as  perhaps  it  may  be  foolish,  with 
which  boys  and  virgins,  woman-mantua-ma- 
kers  and  man-milliners,  and  "  the  rest,"  peruse 
the  Rhapsody  on  Love — one  passage  of  which 
we  ventured  to  be  facetious  on  in  our  Solilo- 
quy on  the  Seasons — and  hang  over  the  pic- 
ture of  Musidora  undressing,  while  Damon 
watches  the  process  of  disrobement,  panting 
behind  a  tree,  will  never  account  for  the  admi- 
ration with  which  the  whole  world  hailed  the 
"Winter,"  the  first  published  of  the  "Sea- 
sons ;"  during  which,  Thomson  had  not  the  bar- 
barity to  plunge  any  young  Indy  naked  into  the 
cold  bath,  nor  the  ignorance  to  represent,  dur- 
ing such  cold  weather,  any  young  lady  turning 
her  lover  sick  by  the  ardour  of  her  looks,  and 
the  vehemence  of  her  whole  enamoured  de- 
portment. The  time  never  was — nor  could 
have  been — when  such  passages  were  gene- 
rally esteemed  the  glory  of  the  poem.  Indeed, 
independently  of  its  own  gross  absurdity,  the 
assertion  is  at  total  variance  with  that  other 
assertion,  equally  absurd,  that  people  admired 
most  in  the  poem  what  they  least  understood ; 
for  the  Rhapsody  on  Love  is  certainly  very  in- 
telligible, nor  does  there  seem  much  mystery 
in  Musidora  going  into  the  water  to  wash  and 
cool  herself  on  a  hot  day.  Is  it  not  melan- 
choly, then,  to  hear  such  a  man  as  Mr.  Words- 
worth, earnestly,  and  even  somewhat  angrily, 
trying  to  prove  that  "  these  are  the  parts  of  the 
work  which,  after  all,  were  probably  most  effi- 
cient in  first  recommending  the  author  to  ge- 
neral notice  1" 

With  respect  to  the  "  sentimental  common- 
])laces  with  which  Thomson  abounds,"  no 
doubt  they  were  and  are  popular;  and  many 
of  them  deserve  to  be  so,  f^or  they  are  on  a 
level  with  the  usual  current  of  human  feeling, 
and    many  of  them   are   eminently  beautiful. 


Thomson  had  not  the  philosophical  genius  of 
Wordsworth,  but  he  had  a  warm  human  heart, 
and  its  generous  feelings  overflow  all  his  poem. 
These  are  not  the  most  poetical  parts  of  the 
"  Seasons  "  certainly,  where  such  efi'usions  pre- 
vail; but  still,  so  far  from  being  either  vicious 
or  tcort}dcs!<,  they  have  often  a  virtue  and  a 
worth  that  must  be  felt  by  all  the  children  of 
men.  There  is  something  not  veiy  credible  in 
the  situation  of  the  parties  in  the  story  of  the 
"  lovely  young  Lavinia,"  for  example,  and 
much  of  the  sentiment  is  commonplace  enough; 
but  will  Mr.  Wordsworth  say — in  support  of 
his  theor)%  that  the  worst  poetry  is  always  at 
first  (and  at  last  too,  it  would  seem,  from  the 
pleasure  with  which  that  tale  is  still  read  by 
all  simple  minds)  the  most  popular — that  that 
story  is  a  bad  one  ?    It  is  a  ver)'  beautiful  one. 

Mr.  Wordsworth,  in  all  his  argumentation, 
is  so  blinded  by  his  determination  to  see  every 
thing  in  but  one  light,  and  that  a  most  mis- 
taken one,  that  he  is  insensible  to  the  conclu- 
sion to  which  it  all  leads,  or  rather,  which  is 
involved  in  it.  Wh)-,  according  to  him,  even 
now,  when  people  have  not  only  learned  the 
"art  of  seeing" — a  blessing  for  which  they  can 
never  be  too  thankful — but  when  descriptive 
poetry  has  long  flourished  far  beyond  its  palmi- 
est state  in  any  other  era  of  our  literature,  still 
are  we  poor  common  mortals  who  admire  the 
"Seasons,"  just  as  deaf  and  blind  now,  or 
nearly  so,  to  their  real  merits — allowed  to  be 
transcendent — as  our  unhappy  forefathers  were 
when  that  poem  first  appeared,  "a  glorious 
apparition."  The  Rhapsody  on  Love,  and  Da- 
mon and  Musidora,  are  still,  according  to  him, 
its  chief  attraction — its  false  ornaments — and 
its  sentimental  commonplaces — such  as  those, 
we  presume,  on  the  benefits  of  early  rising, 
and, 

"  Oh  '.  little  tliink  the  gay  licentious  proud  I" 
What  a  nest  of  ninnies  must  people  in  gene- 
ral be  in  Mr.  Wordsworth's  ejes  !    .^nd  is  the 
"Excursion"  not  to  be  placed  by  the  side  of 
"Paradise  Lost,"  till  the  Millennium? 

Such  is  the  reasonivg  (I)  of  one  of  the  first 
of  our  English  poets,  against  not  only  the  peo- 
ple of  Britain,  but  mankind.  One  other  sen- 
tence there  is  which  we  had  forgotten — but 
now  remember — which  is  to  help  us  to  dis- 
tinguish, in  the  case  of  the  reception  the  "  Sea- 
sons" met  with,  between  "wonder  and  legi- 
timate admiration!"  "The  subject  of  the 
work  is  the  changes  produced  in  the  appear- 
ances of  nature  by  the  revolution  of  the  year; 
and,  undertaking  to  u-rile  in  verse,  Thomson  pledged 
him.H'lf  to  treat  his  subject  as  became  a  poet .'" 
How  original  and  profound!  Thomson  re- 
deemed his  pledge ;  and  that  great  pawnbroker, 
the  public,  returned  lo  him  his  poem  at  the  end 
of  a  year  and  a  day.  Now  what  is  the  "  mighty 
stream  of  tendency"  of  that  remark?  Were 
the  public,  or  the  people,  or  the  world,  gulled 
by  this  unheard-of  pledge  of  Thomson,  to  re- 
gard his  work  with  that  "  wonder  which  is  the 
natural  product  of  ignorance!"  If  they  were 
so  in  his  case,  why  not  in  every  other  ?  All 
poets  pledge  themselves  to  be  poetical,  but  too 
many  of  them  are  wretchedly  prosaic — die  and 
are  buried,  or,  what  is  worse,  protract  a  miser- 
able existence,  in  spite  of  their  sentimental 


THE  SNOWBALL  BICKER  OF  PEDMOUNT. 


267 


commonplaces,  false  ornaments,  and  a  vicious 
style.  But  Thomson,  in  spite  of  all  these, 
leapt  at  once  into  a  glorious  life,  and  a  still 
more  glorious  immortality. 

There  is  no  mystery  in  the  matter.  Thom- 
son— a  great  poet — poured  his  genius  over  a 
subject  of  universal  interest;  and  the  "Sea- 
sons" from  that  hour  to  this — then,  now,  and 
for  ever — have  been,  are,  and  will  be  loved, 
and  admired  by  all  the  world.  All  over  Scot- 
land "The  Seasons"  is  a  household-book. 
Let  the  taste  and  feeling  shown  by  the  Collec- 
tors of  Elegant  Extracts  be  poor  as  possible; 
yet  Thomson's  countrymen,  high  and  low,  rich 
and  poor,  have  all  along  not  only  gloried  in  his 
illustrious  fame,  but  have  made  a  very  manual 
of  his  great  work.  It  lies  in  many  thousand 
cottages.  V/e  have  ourselves  seen  it  in  the 
shepherd's  shieling,  and  in  the  woodman's 
bower — small,  yellow-leaved,  tatter'd,  mean, 
miserable,  calf-skin-bound,  smoked,  slinkhig 
copies — let  us  not  fear  to  utter  the  word,  ugly 
but  true — yet  perused,  pored,  and  pondered 
over  by  those  humble  dwellers,  by  the  winter 
ingle  or  on  the  summer  brae,  perhaps  with  as 
enlightened — certainly  with  as  imagination- 
overmastering  a  delight  as  ever  enchained  the 
spirits  of  the  high-born  and  highly-taught  to 
their  splendid  copies  lying  on  richly  carved 
tables,  and  bound  in  crimson  silk  or  velvet,  in 
which  the  genius  of  painting  strives  to  imbody 
that  of  poetrj',  and  the  printer's  art  to  lends  its 
beauty  to  the  very  shape  of  the  words  in  which 
the  bard's  immortal  spirit  is  enshrined.  "The 
art  of  seeing"  has  flourished  for  many  centu- 
ries in  Scotland.     Men,  women,  and  children, 


all  look  up  to  her  loveful  blue  or  wrathful 
black  skies,  with  a  weather-wisdom  that  keeps 
growing  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  Say  not 
that  'lis  alone 

"The  poor  Indian,  whose  uiitiitor'd  mind 
Sees  God  in  clouds,  and  hears  him  in  the  wind !" 

In  scriptural  language,  loftier  even  than  that, 
the  same  imagery  is  applied  to  the  sights  seen 
by  the  true  believer.  Who  is  it  "  that  maketh 
the  clouds  his  chariotl"  The  Scottish  pea- 
santry— Highland  and  Lowland — look  much 
and  often  on  nature  thus  ;  and  they  live  in  the 
heart  of  the  knowledge  and  of  the  religion  of 
nature.  Therefore  do  they  love  Thomson  as 
an  inspired  bard — only  a  little  lower  than  the 
Prophets.  In  like  manner  have  the  people  of 
Scotland — from  time  immemorial — enjoyed  the 
use  of  their  ears.  Even  persons  somewhat 
hard  of  hearing,  are  not  deaf  to  her  waterfalls. 
In  the  sublime  invocation  to  Winter,  which  we 
have  quoted — we  hear  Thomson  recording  his 
own  worship  of  nature  in  his  boyish  days, 
when  he  roamed  among  the  hills  of  his  father's 
parish,  far  away  from  the  manse.  In  those 
strange  and  stormy  delights  did  not  thousands 
of  thousands  of  the  Scottish  boyhood  familiarly 
live  among  the  mists  and  snows  1  Of  all  that 
number  he  alone  had  the  genius  to  "here 
eternize  on  earth"  his  joy — but  many  millions 
have  had  souls  to  join  religiously  in  the  hymns 
he  chanted.  Yea,  his  native  land,  with  one 
mighty  voice,  has  for  upwards  of  a  century 
responded, 

"These,  as  they  change,  Almighty  Father,  these 
Are  but  the  varied  God  !" 


THE  SNOWBALL  BICKER  OF  PEDMOUNT. 


Beautifcl  as  Snow  yet  is  to  our  eyes,  even 
through  our  spectacles,  how  gray  it  looks  be- 
side that  which  used  to  come  with  the  long 
winters  that  glorified  the  earth  in  our  youth, 
till  the  white  lustre  was  more  delightful  even 
than  the  green — and  we  prayed  that  the  fine 
fleecy  flakes  might  never  cease  falling  waver- 
ingly  from  the  veil  of  the  sky !  No  sooner 
comes  the  winter  now,  than  it  is  awa}'  again 
to  one  of  the  Poles.  Then,  it  was  a  year  in 
Itself — a  whole  life.  We  remember  slides  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  long,  on  level  meadows  ;  and 
some  not  less  steep,  down  the  sides  of  hills  that 
to  us  were  mountains.  No  boy  can  slide  on 
one  leg  now — not  a  single  shoe  seems  to  have 
sparables.  The  florid  style  of  skating  shows 
that  that  fine  art  is  degenerating;  and  we  look 
in  vain  for  the  grand  simplicity  of  the  masters 
that  spread-eagled  in  the  age  of  its  perfection. 
A  change  has  come  over  the  spirit  of  the 
curlers'  dream.  They  seem  to  our  ears  indeed 
to  have  "  quat  their  roaring  play."  The  cry 
of  "  swoop-swoop"  is  heard  still — but  a  faint, 
feeble,  and  unimpassioned  cry,  compared  with 
that  which  used,  on  the  Mearns  Brother-Loch, 
to  make  the  welkin  ring,  and  for  a  moment  to 


startle  the  moon  and  stars — those  in  the  sky, 
as  well  as  those  below  the  ice — till  again  the 
tumult  subsided — and  all  the  host  of  heaven 
above  and  beneath  became  serene  as  a  world 
of  dreams.  Is  it  not  even  so.  Shepherd  1  What 
is  a  rink  now  on  a  pond  in  Duddingstone 
policy,  to  the  rinks  that  rang  and  roared  of  old 
on  the  Loch  o'  the  Lowes,  when  every  stone, 
circled  in  a  halo  of  spra3%  seemed  instinct  with 
spirit  to  obey,  along  all  its  flight,  the  voice  of 
him  that  launched  it  on  its  unerring  aim,  and 
sometimes,  in  spite  of  his  awkward  skilless- 
ness,  when  the  fate  of  the  game  hung  on  his 
own  single  crank,  went  cannonading  through 
all  obstacles,  till  it  fell  asleep,  like  a  beauty  as 
it  was,  just  as  it  kissed  the  Tee ! 

Again  we  see — again  we  sit  in  the  Snow 
house,  built  by  us  boys  out  of  a  drift  in  the 
minister's  glebe,  a  drift — judging  by  the  steeple, 
which  was  sixty — about  twenty  feet  high — and 
purer  than  any  marble.  The  roof  was  all 
strewed  with  diamonds,  which  frost  saved  from 
the  sun.  The  porch  of  the  palace  was  pillared 
—  and  the  character  of  the  building  outside 
was,  without  any  seiv  le  imitation— for  we 
worked  in  the  glow  of  original  genius,  and 


268 


RECREATIOXS   OF    CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


none  of  us  had  then  ever  seen  itself  or  its  pic- 
ture— wonderfully  like  the  Parthenon.  Enter- 
ing, you  found  yourself  in  a  superb  hall, 
lighted  up — not  with  gas,  for  up  to  that  era  gas 
had  not  been  used  except  in  Pandemonium — 
but  with  a  vast  multitude  of  farthing  candles, 
each  in  a  turnip  stuck  into  the  wall — while  a 
chandelier  of  frozen  snow-branches  pendent 
from  the  roof  set  that  presence-chamber  in  a 
blaze.  On  a  throne  at  the  upper  end  sat  young 
Christopher  North— then  the  king  of  boys,  as 
now  of  men — and  proud  were  his  subjects  to 
do  him  homage.  In  niches  all  around  the 
side-walls  were  couches  covered  with  hare, 
rabbit,  foumart,  and  fox's  skins — furnished  by 
these  animals  slain  by  us  in  the  woods  and 
among  the  rocks  of  that  silvan  and  moorland 
parish — the  regal  Torus  alone  being  spread 
with  the  dun-deer's  hide  from  Lochiel  Forest 
in  Lochaber.  Then  old  airs  were  sung — in 
sweet  single  voice — or  in  full  chorus"  that 
startled  the  wandering  night  traveller  on  his 
way  to  the  lone  Kingswell  ;  and  then,  in  the 
intermediate  hush,  old  tales  were  told  "of 
goblin,  ghost,  or  fairy,"  or  of  Wallace  Wight 
at  the  Barns  of  Ayr  or  the  Brigg  o'  Stirling — 
or,  a  glorious  outlaw,  harbouring  in  caves 
among  the  Cartlane  Craigs — or  of  Robert 
Bruce  the  Deliverer,  on  his  shelty  cleaving  in 
twain  the  skull  of  Boliun  the  English  knTght, 
on  his  thundering  war-steed,  armed  cap-a-pie, 
while  the  King  of  Scotland  had  nothing  on  his 
unconqueredhead  but  his  plain  golden  crown. 
Tales  of  the  Snow-house !  Had  we  but  the 
genius  to  recall  you  to  life  in  undying  song! 

Nor  was  our  frozen  hall  at  all  times  unchecr- 
ed  by  the  smiles  of  beauty.  With  those  smiles 
was  heard  the  harmless  love-whisper,  and  the 
harmless  kiss  of  love ;  for  the  cottages  poured 
forth  their  little  lasses  in  (lower-like  bands,.nor 
did  their  parents  fear  to  trust  them  in  the  fairy 
frozen  palace,  where  Christopher  was  king. 
Sometimes  the  old  people  themselves  came  to 
see  the  wonders  of  the  lamp,  and  on  a  snow- 
table  stood  a  huge  bowl — not  of  snow — steam- 
ing with  nectar  that  made  Hyems  smile  as  he 
hung  his  beard  over  the  fragrant  vapour.  Nay, 
the  minister  himself— with  his  mother  and 
sister — was  with  us  in  our  fantastic  festivities, 
and  gave  to  the  architecture  of  our  palace  his 
wondering  praise.  Then  Andrew  Lindsey, 
the  blind  Paisley  musician,  a  Latin  scholar, 
who  knew  where  Cremona  stood,  struck  up  on 
his  famous  fiddle  jig  or  strathspe\' — and  the 
swept  floor,  in  a  moment,  was  alive  with  a 
confused  flight  of  foursome  reels,  each  begun 
and  ended  with  kisses,  and  maddened  by  many 
a  whoop  and  yell — so  like  savages  were  we 
in  cur  glee,  dancing  at  the  marriage  of  some 
island  king  J 

Countless  years  have  fled  since  that  Snow- 
palace  melted  away— and  of  all  who  danced 
there,  how  many  are  now  alive  !  Pshaw  !  as 
many  probably  as  then  danced  anywhere  else. 
It  would  never  do  to  live  for  ever— let  us  then 
live  well  and  wisely  ;  and  when  death  comes 
— from  that  sleep  how  blessed  to  awake !  in  a 
region  where  is  no  frost — no  snow — but  the  sun 
of  eternal  life  ! 

Mercy  on  us!  what  a  hubbub! — can  thehar- 
r'ers  be  hunting  in  such  a  snow-fall  as  this, 


and  is  poor  pussy  in  view  before  the  wholt 
murderous  pack,  opening  in  full  cry  on  her 
haunches  1  Why — Imagination,  thou  art  an 
ass,  and  thy  long  ears  at  all  times  greedy  of 
deception  !  'Tis  but  the  country  Schoolhouse 
pouring  forth  its  long-imprisoned  stream  of  life 
as  in  a  sudden  sunny  thaw,  the  Mad  Master 
flying  in  the  van  of  his  helter-skelter  scholars, 
and  the  whole  yelling  mass  precipitated,  many 
of  them  headlong,  among  the  snow.  Well  do 
we  know  the  fire-eyed  Poet-pedagogue,  who, 
more  outrageous  than  Apollo,  has  "  ravished 
all  the  Nine."  Ode,  elegy,  epic,  tragedy,  or 
farce — all  come  alike  to  him  ;  and  of  all  the 
bards  we  have  ever  known — and  the  sum-tolal 
cannot  be  under  a  thousand — he  alone,  judging 
from  the  cock  and  the  squint  of  his  eye,  la- 
bours under  the  blessing  or  the  curse — we  wot 
not  whilk  it  be — of  perpetual  inspiration.  A 
rare  eye,  too,  is  his  at  the  setting  of  a  spring 
for  woodcocks,  or  tracking  a  mawkin  on  the 
snow.  Not  a  daredevil  in  the  school  that 
durst  follow  the  indentations  of  his  toes  and 
fingers  up  the  wall  of  the  old  castle,  to  the 
holes  just  below  the  battlements,  to  thrust  his 
arm  up  to  the  elbows  harrying  the  starlings* 
nests.  The  corbies  ken  the  shape  of  his  shoul- 
ders, as  craftily  he  threads  the  wood;  and  let 
them  build  their  domicil  as  high  as  the  swing- 
ing twigs  will  bear  its  weight,  agile  as  squir- 
rel, and  as  foumart  ferocious,  up  speels,  by 
the  height  undizzied,  the  dreadless  Dominie; 
and  should  there  be  fledged  or  puddock-haircd 
young  ones  among  the  wool,  whirling  with  gut- 
tural cawings  down  a  hundred  feet  descent,  on 
the  hard  rooty  ground-floor  from  which  springs 
pine,  oak,  or  ash,  driven  out  is  the  life,  with  a 
squelsh  and  a  squash,  from  the  worthless  car- 
rion. At  swimming  we  should  not  boggle  to 
hack  him  for  the  trifle  of  a  cool  hundred 
against  the  best  survivor  among  these  water- 
serpents,  Mr.  Turner,  Dr.  Bedale,  Lieutenant 
Ekenhead,  Lord  Byron,  Leander,  and  Our- 
selves— while,  with  the  steel  shiners  on  his 
soles,  into  what  a  set  of  ninnies  in  their  ring 
would  he  not  reduce  the  Edinburgh  Skating 
Club? 

Saw  ye  ever  a  Snowball  Bicker!  Never? 
Then  look  there  with  all  the  eyes  in  your  head 
— only  beware  of  a  bash  on  the  bridge  of  your 
nose,  a  bash  that  shall  die  the  snow  with  your 
virgin  blood.  The  Poet-pedagogue,  alias  the 
Mad  Dominic,  with  Bob  Howie  as  his  Second 
in  Command,  has  chosen  the  Six  stoutest  strip- 
lings for  his  troop,  and,  at  the  head  of  that  Sa- 
cred Band,  offers  battle  to  Us  at  the  head  of  the 
whole  School.  Nor  does  that  formidable  force 
decline  the  combat.  War  levels  all  foolish 
distinctions  of  scholarship.  Booby  is  Dux 
now,  and  Dux  Booby — and  the  obscure  dunce 
is  changed  into  an  illustrious  hero. 

"The  combat  deepens — on,  ye  brave, 
Who  rush  lo  glory  or  the  crave  ! 
Wave,  Nitlon,  all  thy  banners  wave, 
And  charge  with  all  thy  schoolery  !" 

Down  from  the  mount  on  which  it  had  been 
drawn  up  in  battle-array,  in  solid-square  comes 
the  School  army,  with  shouts  that  might  waken 
the  dead,  and  inspire  with  the  breath  of  life 
the  nostrils  of  the  great  Snow-giant  built  up  at 
the  end  of  yonder  avenue,  and  indurated  by 


THE  SNOWBALL  BICKER  OF  PEDMOUNT. 


269 


last  night's  frost.  But  there  lies  a  fresh  fall — 
and  a  better  day  for  aBickerneverrose  flakily 
from  the  yellow  East.  Far  out  of  distance, 
and  prodigal  of  powder  lying  three  feet  deep  on 
the  tiats,  and  heaped  up  in  drifts  to  tree  and 
chimney-top,  the  tirailleurs,  flung  out  in  front, 
commence  the  conflict  by  a  shower  of  balls 
that,  from  the  bosom  of  the  yet  untrodden 
snow  between  the  two  battles,  makes  spin  like 
spray  the  shining  surface.  Then  falling  back 
on  the  main  body,  they  find  their  places  in  the 
front  rank,  and  the  whole  mottled  mass,  gray, 
blue,  and  scarlet,  moves  onwards  o'er  the 
■whiteness,  a  moment  ere  they  close, 

"  Calm  as  the  breeze,  but  dreadful  as  the  storm !" 
"  Let  fly,"  cries  a  clear  voice — and  the  snow- 
ball-storm hurtles  through  the  sky.  Just  then 
the  valley-mouth  blew  sleety  in  the  faces  of 
the  foe — their  eyes,  as  if  darkened  with  snuff" 
or  salt,  blinked  bat-like — and  with  erring  aim 
flew  their  feckless  return  to  that  shower  of 
frosty  fire.  Incessant  is  the  silent  cannonade 
of  the  resistless  School — silent  but  when  shouts 
proclaim  the  fall  or  flight  of  some  doughty 
champion  in  the  adverse  legion. 

See — see — the  Sacred  Band  are  broken  !  The 
cravens  taken  ignominiously  to  flight — and 
the  Mad  Domine  and  Bob  Howie  alone  are 
left  to  bear  the  brunt  of  battle.  A  dreadful 
brotherhood!  But  the  bashing  balls  are  show- 
ered upon  them  right  and  left  from  scores  of 
catapultic  arms — and  the  day  is  going  sore 
against  them,  though  they  fight  less  like  men 
than  devils.  Hurra!  the  Dominie's  down, and 
Bob  staggers.  "Guards,  up  and  at  them!" 
"A  simultaneous  charge  of  cocks,  hens,  and 
yearocks  !"  No  sooner  said  than  done.  Bob 
Howie  is  buried — and  the  whole  School  is 
trampling  on  its  Master  ! 

"  Oh,  for  a  blast  of  that  dread  horn. 
On  Fontarabian  echoes  borne, 

That  to  Kins  Charles  did  come, 
When  Rowland  brave  and  Olivier, 
And  every  paladin  and  peer, 

On  Roncesvalles  died !" 

The  smothered  ban  of  Bob,  and  the  stifled 
denunciations  of  the  Dominie,  have  echoed 
o'er  the  hill,  and, 

"  Fierce  as  ten  furies,  terrible  as  hell," 

the  runaways,  shaking  the  snows  of  panic 
from  their  pows, 

"  Like  dewdrops  from  the  lion's  mane," 
come  rushing  to  the  rescue.  Two  of  the  Six 
tremble  and  turn.  The  high  heroic  scorn  of 
their  former  selves  urges  four  to  renew  the 
charge,  and  the  sound  of  their  feet  on  the  snow 
is  like  that  of  an  earthquake.  What  bashes 
on  bloody  noses  !  What  bungings-up  of  eyes  ! 
Of  lips  what  slittings !  Red  is  many  a  spittle  ! 
And  as  the  coughing  urchin  groans,  and  claps 
his  hand  to  his  mouth,  distained  is  the  snow- 
ball that  drops  unlaunched  at  his  feet!  The 
School  are  broken — their  hearts  die  within 
them — and — can  we  trust  our  blasted  eyesi — 
the  white  livers  show  the  white  feather,  and 
fly  I  O  shame  !  O  sorrow !  O  sin  !  they  turn 
their  backs  and  fly  !  Disgraced  are  the  mothers 
that  bore  them — and  "happy  in  my  mind," 
wives  and  widows,  "were  ye  that  died,"  un- 
doomed  to  hear  the  tidings  of  this  wretched 


overthrow !  Heavens  and  earth !  sixty  are 
flying  before  Six! — and  half  of  sixty — oh!  that 
we  should  record  it ! — are  pretending  to  be  dead!! 
Would  indeed  that  the  snow  were  their  wind- 
ing-sheet, so  that  it  might  but  hide  our  dis- 
honour! 

Look,  we  beseech  you,  at  the  Mad  Dominie ! 
like  Hector  issuing  from  the  gates  of  Troy, 
and  driving  back  the  Greeks  to  their  ships ; 
or  rather — hear,  spirit  of  Homer ! — like  some 
great  shaggy,  outlandish  wolf-dog,  that  hath 
swum  ashore  from  some  strange  wreck,  and, 
after  a  fortnight's  famine  on  the  bare  sea- 
cliffs,  been  driven  by  the  hunger  that  gnaws 
his  stomach  like  a  cancer,  and  the  thirst-fever 
that  can  only  be  slaked  in  blood,  to  venture 
prowling  for  prey  up  the  vale,  till,  snuffing  the 
scent  of  a  flock  of  sheep,  after  some  grim 
tiger-like  creeping  on  his  belly,  he  springs  at 
last,  with  huge  long  spangs,  on  the  woolly 
people,  with  bull-like  growlings  quailing  their 
poor  harmless  hearts,  and  then  fast  throttling 
them,  one  after  another — till,  as  it  might  seem 
rather  in  wantonness  of  rage  than  in  empty 
pangs,  he  lies  down  at  last  in  the  midst  of  all 
the  murdered  carcasses,  licking  the  blood  off" 
his  flews  and  paws — and  then,  looking  and 
listening  round  with  his  red  turbid  eyes,  and 
sharp-pointed  ears  savagely  erect,  conscious 
of  crime  and  fearful  of  punishment,  soon  as 
he  sees  and  hears  that  all  the  coast  is  clear 
and  still,  again  gloatingly  fastens  his  tusks  be- 
hind the  cars,  and  then  eats  into  the  kidneys 
of  the  fattest  of  the  flock,  till,  sated  with  gore 
and  tallow,  he  sneaks  stealthily  into  the  wood, 
and  coiling  himself  up  all  his  wiry  length — 
now  no  longer  lank,  but  swollen  and  knotted 
like  that  of  a  deer-devouring  snake — he  falls 
suddenly  asleep,  and  re-banquets  in  a  dream 
of  murder. 

That  simile  was  conceived  in  the  spirit  of 
Dan  Homer,  but  delivered  in  that  of  Kit  North. 
No  matter.  Like  two  such  wolf-dogs  are  now 
Bob  Howie  and  the  Mad  Dominie — and  the 
School  like  such  silly  sheep.  Those  other  hell- 
dogs  are  leaping  in  the  rear — and  to  the  eyes 
of  fear  and  flight  each  one  of  the  Six  seems 
more  many-headed  than  Cerberus,  while  their 
mouths  kindle  the  frosty  air  into  fire,  and  thun- 
derbolts pursue  the  pell-mell  of  the  panic. 

Such  and  so  imaginative  is  not  only  mental 
but  corporal  fear.  What  though  it  be  but  a 
Snowball  bicker !  The  air  is  darkened — no 
brightened  by  the  balls,  as  in  many  a  curve 
they  describe  their  airy  flight — some  hard  as 
stones — some  soft  as  slush — some  blae  and 
drippy  in  the  cold-hot  hand  that  launches  them 
on  the  flying  foe,  and  these  are  the  teazers — 
some  almost  transparent  in  the  cerulean  sky, 
and  broken  ere  they  reach  their  aim,  abortive 
"  armamentaria  coeli  " — and  some  useless  from 
the  first,  and  felt,  as  they  leave  the  palm,  to  be 
fozier  than  the  foziest  turnip,  and  unfit  to  bash 
a  fly. 

Far  and  wide,  over  hill,  bank,  and  brae,  are 
spread  the  flying  School !  Squads  of  us,  at 
sore  sixes  and  sevens,  are  making  for  the 
frozen  woods.  Alas  !  poor  covert  now  in  their 
naked  leaflessness  for  the  stricken  deer !  Twos 
and  threes,  in  miserable  plight  floundering  in 
drift-wreaths  !  And  here  and  there — wofulesf 
z2 


270 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


sight  of  all — single  boys  distractedly  ettling  at 
the  sanctuaries  of  distant  houses — with  their 
heads  all  the  while  insanely  twisted  back  over 
their  shoulders,  and  the  glare  of  their  eyes 
fixed  frightfully  on  the  swift-footed  Mad  Dom- 
inie, till  souse  over  neck  and  ears,  bubble  and 
squeak,  precipitated  into  traitorous  pitfall,  and 
in  a  moment  evanished  from  this  upper  world  ! 

Disturbed  crows  fly  away  a  short  distance 
and  alight  silent — the  magpies  chatter  pert 
even  in  alarm — the  lean  kine,  collected  on  the 
lown  sides  of  braes,  wonder  at  the  rippet — 
their  horns  moving,  but  not  their  tails — while 
the  tempest-tamed  bull — almost  dull  now  as  an 
ox — gives  a  short  sullen  growl  as  he  feebly 
paws  the  snow. 

But  who  is  he — the  tall  slender  boy — slender, 
but  sinewy — a  wiry  chap — five  feet  eight  on 
his  stocking-soles — and  on  his  stocking-soles 
he  stands — for  the  snow  has  sucked  his  shoes 
from  his  feet — that  plants  himself  like  an  oak 
sapling,  rooted  ankle-deep  on  a  knoll,  and 
there,  a  juvenile  Jupiter  Stator,  with  voice  and 
arm  arrests  the  Flight,  and  fiercely  gesticula- 
ting vengeance  on  the  insolent  foe,  recalls  and 
rallies  the  shattered  School,  that  he  may  re- 
lead  them  to  victory]  The  phantom  of  a  vi- 
sionary dream  !  Kit  Noiith  Himsklf — 
"In  life's  morning  march  when  his  spirit  was  young." 
And  once  on  a  day  was  that  figure — ours  ! 
Then  like  a  chamois-hunter  of  the  Alps  !  Now, 
alas  !  like — 

"But  be  hush'd,  my  dark  spirit— for  wisdom  condemns, 

When  ttie  falnl  and  the  feeble  deplore; 
Be  strong  as  a  rork  of  the  ocean  that  stems 

A  thousand  wild  waves  on  tlie  shore. 
Through  the  perils  of  chance  and  the  scowl  of  disdain, 

Let  thy  front  be  unalter'd,  thy  couraee  elate  ; 
Yea  I  fven  the  vamc  xre  hare  vorithipp'il  in  vain 
Shall  awake  not  a  pang  of  renienibrance  again  ; 

To  bear,  is  to  conquer  our  fate!'" 

Half  a  century  is  annihilated  as  if  it  had  never 
been:  it  is  as  if  young  Kit  had  become  not  old 
Kit — but  were  standing  now  as  then  front  to 
front,  with  but  a  rood  of  trampled  snow  be- 
tween them,  before  the  Mad  Dominie  and  Bob 
Howie — both  the  bravest  of  the  brave  in  Snow- 
ball or  Stone  bicker — in  street,  lane,  or  muir 
fight — hand  to  hand,  single-pitched  with  Black 
King  Carey  of  the  Gipsies — or  in  irregular 
high-road  row — two  to  twelve — with  a  gang  of 
Irish  horse-cowpers  from  the  fair  of  Glasgow 
returning  by  Portpatrick  to  Donaghadee.  Tis 
a  strange  thing  so  distinctly  to  see  One's  Self 
as  he  looked  of  yore — to  lose  one's  present 
frail  personal  identity  in  that  of  the  powerful 
past.  Or  rather  to  admire  One's  Self  as  he 
leas,  without  consciousness  of  the  mean  vice 
of  egotism,  because  of  the  pity  almost  border- 
ing on  contempt  with  which  One  regards  One's 
Self  as  he  is,  shrivelled  up  into  a  sort  of  shrimp 
of  a  man — or  blown  out  into  a  flounder. 

The  Snowball  bicker  owns  an  armistice — 
and  Kit  North— that  is,  we  of  the  olden  and 
the  golden  time— advance  into  the  debatable 
ground  between  the  two  armies,  with  a  frozen 
branch  in  our  hand  as  a  flag  of  truce.  The 
Mad  Dominie  loved  us,  because  then-a-da3-s — 
bating  and  barring  the  cock  and  the  squint  of 
his  eye— we  were  like  himself  a  poet,  and 
■while  a  goose  might  continue  standing  on  one 
leg,  could  have  composed  one  jolly  act  of  a 
tragedy,  or  book  of  an  epic,  while  Bob — God 


bless  him! — to  guard  us  from  scathe,  would 
have  risked  his  life  against  a  whole  crael  of 
tinkers.  With  open  arms  they  come  forward 
to  receive  us;  but  our  blood  is  up — and  we 
are  jealous  of  the  honour  of  the  School,  which 
has  received  a  stain  which  must  be  wiped  out 
in  blood.  From  what  mixed  motives  act  boys 
and  men  in  the  deeds  deemed  most  heroic,  and 
worthy  of  the  meed  of  everlasting  fame  !  Even 
so  is  it  now  with  us — when  sternly  eyeing  the 
other  Six,  and  then  respectfully  the  Mad  Domi- 
nie, we  challenge — not  at  long  bowls — but  toe 
to  toe,  at  the  scratch  on  the  snow,  with  the 
naked  mawlies,  the  brawny  boy  with  the  red 
shock-head,  the  villain  with  the  cairots,  who 
by  moonlight  nights, 
"  Round  the  stacks  with  the  lasses  gt  bogles  to  play," 
had  dared  to  stand  between  us  and  the  ladye 
of  our  love.  Off"  fly  our  jackets  and  stocks — 
it  is  not  a  day  for  bufll"— and  at  it  like  bull-dogs. 
Twice  before  had  we  fought  him — at  our  own 
option — over  the  bonnet ;  for  'twas  a  sturdy 
villain,  and  famous  for  the  cross-buttock.  But 
now,  after  the  first  close,  in  which  we  lose  the 
fall — with  straight  right-handers  we  keep  him 
at  ofl-fighting — and  that  was  a  gush  of  blood 
from  his  smeller.  "  How  do  you  like  that, 
Ben  ?"  Giving  his  head,  with  a  mad  rush,  he 
makes  a  plunge  with  his  heavy  left — for  he 
was  kerr-handed — at  our  stomach.  But  a  dip 
of  our  right  elbow  caught  the  blow,  to  the  loud 
admiration  of  Bob  Howie — and  even  the  Mad 
Dominie,  the  umpire,  could  not  choose  but 
smile.  Like  lightning,  our  left  returns  be- 
tween the  ogles — and  Ben  bites  the  snow. 
Three  cheers  from  the  School — and,  lifted  on 
the  knee  of  his  second,  James  Maxwell  Wal- 
lace, since  signalized  at  Waterloo,  and  now  a 
knighted  colonel  of  horse,  "  he  grins  horribly 
a  ghastly  smile,"  and  is  brought  up  staggering 
to  the  scratch.  We  know  that  we  have  him 
— and  ask  considerately,  "  what  he  means  by 
winking  1"  And  now  we  play  around  him, 
"Just  like  unto  a  trundling  mop, 
Or  a  wild-goose  at  play." 

He  is  brought  down  now  to  our  own  weight — 
then  nine  stone  jimp — his  eyes  are  getting  mo- 
mently more  and  more  piglike — water-logged, 
like  those  of  Queen  Bleary,  whose  stone  image 
lies  in  the  echoing  aisle  of  the  old  abbey-church 
of  Paisley — and  bat-blind,  he  hits  past  our  head 
and  body,  like  an  awkward  hand  at  the  flail, 
when  drunk,  thrashing  corn.  Another  hit  on 
the  smeller,  and  a  stinger  on  the  throat-apple 
— and  down  he  sinks  like  a  poppy — deaf  to  the 
call  of  "time" — and  victory  smiles  upon  us 
from  the  bright  blue  skies.  "  Hurra — hurra — 
hurra!  Christopher  for  ever!"  and  perched 
aloft,  astride  on  the  shoulders  of  Bob  Howie — 
he,  the  Invincible,  gallops  with  us  all  over  the 
field,  followed  by  the  shouting  School,  exulting 
that  Ben  the  Bully  has  at  last  met  with  an 
overthrow.  We  exact  an  oath  that  he  will 
never  again  meddle  with  Meg  Whitelaw— 
shake  hands  cordially,  and 

"Off  to  some  other  game  we  all  together  flew." 
And  so  ended  the  famous  Snowball  Bicker  of 
Pedmount,  now  immortalized   in   our  Prose- 
Poem. 

Some  men,  it  is  sarcastically  said,  are  boys 
all  life-long,  and  carry  with  them  their  puer- 


CHRISTMAS  DREAMS. 


271 


ility  to  the  grave.  'Twould  be  well  for  the 
world  were  there  in  it  more  such  men.  By 
way  of  proving  their  manhood,  we  have  heard 
grown-up  people  abuse  their  own  boyhood — 
forgetting  what  our  great  Philosophical  Poet 
— after  Milton  and  Dryden — has  told  them, 
that 

"  The  boy  is  father  of  the  man," 

and  thus  libelling  the  author  of  their  existence. 
A  poor  boy  indeed  must  he  have  been,  who 
submitted  to  misery  when  the  sun  was  new  in 
heaven.  Did  he  hate  or  despise  the  flowers 
around  his  feet,  congratulating  him  on  being 
young  like  themselves?  the  stars,  young  al- 
ways, though  Heaven  only  knows  how  many 
million  years  old,  every  night  sparkling  in 
happiness  which  they  manifestly  wished  him 
to  share]  Did  he  indeed  in  his  heart  believe 
that  the  moon,  in  spite  of  her  shining  mid- 
night face,  was  made  of  green  cheese  ]  Not 
only  are  the  foundations  dug  and  laid  in  boy- 
hood, of  all  the  knowledge  and  the  feelings  of 
our  prime,  but  the  ground-flat  too  built,  and 
often  the  second  story  of  the  entire  superstruc- 
ture, from  the  windows  of  which,  the  soul  look- 
ing out,  beholds  nature  in  her  state,  and  leaps 
down,  unafraid  of  a  fall  on  the  green  or  white 
bosom  of  earth,  to  join  with  hymns  the  front 
of  the  procession.  The  soul  afterwards  per- 
fects her  palace — building  up  tier  after  tier  of 


all  imaginable  orders  of  architecture — till  the 
shadowy  roof,  gleaming  with  golden  cupolas, 
like  the  cloud-region  of  the  setting  sun,  set  the 
heavens  a-blaze. 

Gaze  up  on  the  highest  idea — gaze  down  on 
the  profoundest  emotion — and  you  will  know 
and  feel  in  a  moment  that  it  is  not  a  new  birth. 
You  become  a  devout  believer  in  the  Pythago 
rean  and  Platonic  doctrine  of  metempsychosis 
and  reminiscence,  and  are  awed  by  the  myste- 
rious consciousness  of  the  thought  "  Before  !" 
Try  then  to  fix  its  date,  and  back  travels  your 
soul,  now  groping  its  way  in  utter  darkness, 
and  now  in  darkness  visible — now  launching 
along  lines  of  steady  lustre:  such  as  the  moon 
throws  on  the  broad  bosoms  of  starry  lakes— 
now  dazzled  by  sudden  contrast — 

"  Blind  with  excess  of  light !" 

But  back  let  it  travel,  as  best  or  worst  it  may, 
through  and  amidst  eras  after  eras  of  the  wan 
or  radiant  past;  yet  never,  except  for  some 
sweet  instant  of  delusion,  breaking  dewdrop- 
like  at  a  touch  or  a  breath,  during  all  that 
perilous  pilgrimage — and  perilous  must  it  be, 
haunted  by  so  many  ghosts  —  never  may  it 
reach  the  shrine  it  seeks — the  fountain  from 
Avhich  first  flowed  that  feeling  whose  origin 
seems  to  have  been  out  of  the  world  of  time — 
dare  we  say — in  eternity  ! 


CHRISTMAS  DUEAMS. 


How  graciously  provided  are  all  the  subdi- 
visions of  Time,  diversifying  the  dream  of 
human  life !  And  why  should  moralists  mourn 
over  the  mutability  that  gives  the  chief  charm 
to  all  that  passes  so  transitorily  before  our 
e)fes  ! — leaving  image  upon  image  in  the  waters 
of  memory,  that  can  bear  being  stirred  without 
being  disturbed,  and  contain  steadier  and 
steadier  reflections  as  they  seem  to  repose  on 
an  unfathomable  depth ! — the  years,  the  months, 
the  weeks,  the  days,  the  nights,  the  hours,  the 
minutes,  the  moments,  each  in  itself  a  different 
living,  and  peopled,  and  haunted  world.  One 
Life  is  a  thousand  lives,  and  each  individual, 
as  he  fully  renews  the  past,  reappears  in  a 
thousand  characters ;  yet  all  of  them  bearing 
a  mysterious  identity  not  to  be  misunderstood, 
and  all  of  them,  while  every  passion  has  been 
shifting  and  ceasing,  and  reascending  into 
power,  still  under  the  dominion  of  the  same 
Conscience,  that  feels  and  knows  it  is  from 
God. 

Who  will  complain  of  the  shortness  of  hu- 
man life,  that  can  re-travel  all  the  windings, 
and  wanderings,  and  mazes  that  his  feet  have 
trodden  since  the  farthest  back  hour  at  which 
memory  pauses,  baflled  and  blindfolded,  as  she 
vainly  tries  to  penetrate  and  illumine  the  pal- 
pable, the  impervious  darkness  that  shrouds 
the  f;w  first  years  of  our  inscrutable  being  ? 
Long',  long,  long  ago  seems  it  to  be  indeed, 
when  we  now  remember  it,  the  Time  we  first 


pulled  the  primroses  on  the  sunny  braes,  won- 
dering in  our  first  blissful  emotions  of  beauty 
at  the  leaves  with  a  softness  all  their  own — 
a  yellowness  nowhere  else  so  vivid — "  the 
bright  consummate  flower"  so  starlike  to  our 
awakened  imagination  among  the  lowly  grass 
— lovely  indeed  to  our  admiring  eyes  as  an)'' 
one  of  all  the  stars  that,  in  their  turn,  did  seem 
themselves  like  flowers  in  the  blue  fields  of 
heaven  !  Long,  long,  long  ago,  the  time  when 
we  danced  hand  in  hand  with  our  golden- 
haired  sister  !  Long,  long,  long  ago,  the  day 
on  which  she  died — the  hour,  so  far  more  dis- 
mal than  any  hour  that  can  now  darken  us  on 
this  earth,  when  her  coffin  descended  slowly, 
slowly  into  the  horrid  clay,  and  Ave  were  borne 
deathlike,  and  wishing  to  die,  out  of  the  church- 
yard, that,  from  that  moment,  we  thought  we 
could  enter  never  more !  What  a  multitudi- 
nous being  must  ours  have  been,  when,  before 
our  boyhood  was  gone,  we  could  have  forgot- 
ten her  buried  face  !  Or  at  the  dream  of  it, 
dashed  off"  a  tear,  and  away,  with  a  bounding 
heart,  in  the  midst  of  a  cloud  of  playmates, 
breaking  into  fragments  on  the  hill-side,  and 
hurrying  round  the  shores  of  those  wild  moor- 
land lochs,  in  vain  hope  to  surprise  the  heron 
that  slowly  uplifted  his  blue  bulk,  and  floated 
away,  regardless  of  our  shouts,  to  the  old  cas 
tie  woods.  It  is  all  like  a  reminiscence  of 
some  other  state  of  existence. 
Then,  after  all  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  those 


272 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


few  years,  which  we  now  call  transitory,  but 
which  our  Boyhood  felt  as  if  they  would  be 
•ndless — as  if  they  would  endure  for  ever — 
arose  upon  us  the  glorious  dawning  of  another 
new  life — Youth — with  its  insupportable  sun- 
shine, and  its  agitating  storms.  Transitory, 
too,  we  now  know,  and  well  deserving  the 
same  name  of  dream.  But  while  it  lasted, 
long,  various,  and  agonizing;  as,  unable  to 
sustain  the  eyes  that  first  revealed  to  us  the 
light  of  love,  we  hurried  away  from  the  part- 
ing hour,  and,  looking  up  to  moon  and  stars, 
invocated  in  sacred  oaths,  hugged  the  very 
heavens  to  our  heart.  Yet  life  had  not  then 
nearly  reached  its  meridian,  journeying  up 
the  sunbright  firmament.  How  low  hung  it 
there  exulting,  when  "  it  flamed  on  the  fore- 
head of  the  noontide  sky  !"  Let  not  the  Time 
be  computed  by  the  lights  and  shadows  of  the 
}^ears,  bnt  by  the  innumerable  array  of  vision- 
ary thoughts,  that  kept  deploying  as  if  from 
one  eternity  into  another — now  in  dark  sullen 
masses,  now  in  long  array,  brightened  as  if 
with  spear-points  and  standards,  and  moving 
along  through  chasm,  abyss,  and  forest,  and 
over  the  summits  of  the  highest  mountains,  to 
the  sound  of  ethereal  music,  now  warlike  and 
tempestuous — now,  as  "  from  (lutes  and  soft 
recorders"  accompanying  not  pwans  of  victory 
but  hymns  of  peace.  That  Life,  too,  seems, 
now  that  it  is  gone,  to  have  been  of  a  thousand 
years.  Is  it  gone  7  Its  skirts  are  yet  hovering 
on  the  horizon.  And  is  there  yet  another  Life 
destined  for  us  1  That  Life  which  men  fear 
to  face — Ago,  Old  Age!  Four  dreams  within 
a  dream — and  where  to  awake? 

At  dead  of  night — and  it  is  now  dead  of  night 
— how  the  heart  quakes  on  a  sudden  at  the 
silent  resurrection  of  buried  thoughts  !  Per- 
haps the  sunshine  of  some  one  single  Sabbath 
of  more  exceeding  holiness  comes  first  glim- 
mering, and  then  brightening  upon  us,  with 
the  very  same  sanctity  that  filled  all  the  air 
at  the  tolling  of  the  kirk-bell,  when  all  the 
parish  was  hushed,  and  the  voice  of  streams 
heard  more  distinctly  among  the  banks  and 
braes.  Then,  all  at  once,  a  thunder-slorm  that 
many  years  before,  or  many. years  after,  drove 
us,  when  walking  alone  over  the  mountains, 
into  a  shieling,  will  seem  to  succeed;  and  we 
behold  the  same  threatening  aspect  of  the 
heavens  that  then  quailed  our  beating  hearts, 
and  frowned  down  o'ur  eyelids  before  the  light- 
ning began  to  flash,  and  the  black  rain  to 
deluge  all  the  glens.  No  need  now  for  any 
eflTort  of  thought.  The  images  rise  of  them- 
selves— independently  of  our  volition — as  if 
another  being,  studying  the  working  of  our 
minds,  conjured  up  ihe  phantasmagoria  before 
us  who  are  beholding  it  with  love,  wonder,  and 
fear.  Darkness  and  silence  have  a  power  of 
sorcery  over  the  past;  the  soul  has  then,  too, 
.  often  restored  to  it  feelings  and  thoughts  that 
it  had  lost,  and  is  made  to  know  that  nothing 
It  once  experiences  ever  perishes,  but  that  all 
ihings  spiritual  possess  a  principle  of  immor- 
tal life. 

Why  linger  on  the  shadowy  wall  some  of 
'nose  phantasmagoria — returning  after  they 
Jave  disappeared — and  reluctant  to  pass  away 
Bito  their  former  oblivion  1     Why  shoot  others 


athwart  the  gloom,  quick  as  spectral  figures 
seen  hurrying  among  the  mountains  during  a 
great  storm  1  Why  do  some  glare  and  threat- 
en— why  others  fade  away  with  a  melancholj'' 
smile  1  Why  that  one — a  Figure  all  in  white, 
and  with  white  roses  in  her  hair — come  for- 
ward through  the  haze,  beautifying  into  dis- 
tincter  form  and  face,  till  her  pale  beseeching 
hands  almost  touch  our  neck — and  then,  in  a 
moment,  it  is  as  nothing  1 

But.  now  the  room  is  disenchanted — and 
feebly  our  lamp  is  glimmering,  about  to  leave 
us  to  the  light  of  the  moon  and  stars.  There 
it  is  trimmed  again — and  the  sudden  increase 
of  lustre  cheers  the  heart  within  us  like  a 
festal  strain.  And  To-Morrow — To-Morrow 
is  Merry  Christmas;  and  when  its  night  de- 
scends there  will  be  mirth  and  music,  and  the 
light  sounds  of  the  merry-twinkling  feet  with- 
in these  now  so  melancholy  walls — and  sleep 
now  reigning  over  all  the  house  save  this  one 
room,  will  be  banished  far  over  the  sea — and 
morning  will  be  reluctant  to  allow  her  light  to 
break  up  the  innocent  orgies. 

Were  every  Christmas  of  which  we  have 
been  present  at  the  celebration,  painted  accord- 
ing to  nature — what  a  Gallerj'  of  Pictures ! 
True  that  a  sameness  would  pervade  them 
all — but  only  that  kind  of  sameness  that  per- 
vades the  nocturnal  heavens.  One  clear  night 
always  is,  to  common  eyes,  just  like  another; 
for  what  hath  any  night  to  show  but  one  moon 
and  some  stars — a  blue  vault,  with  here  a  few 
braided,  and  there  a  few  castellated,  clouds  1 
yet  no  two  nights  ever  bore  more  than  a  family 
resemblance  to  each  other  before  the  studious 
and  instructed  eye  of  him  who  has  long  com- 
muned with  Nature,  and  is  familiar  with  every 
smile  and  frown  on  her  changeful,  but  not 
capricious,  countenance.  EVen  so  with  the 
Annual  Festivals  of  the  heart.  Then  our 
thoughts  are  the  stars  that  illumine  those 
skies — and  on  ourselves  it  depends  whether 
they  shall  be  black  as  Erebus,  or  brighter  than 
Aurora. 
"Tlinuglils!  that  like  spirits  trackless  come  and  go" — 

is  a  fine  line  of  Charles  Lloyd's.  But  no  bird 
skims,  no  arrow  pierces  the  air,  without  pro- 
ducing some  change  in  the  Universe,  which 
will  last  to  the  day  of  doom.  No  coming  and 
going  is  absolutely  trackless ;  nor  irrecover- 
able by  Nature's  law  is  any  consciousness, 
however  ghostlike;  though  many  one,  even 
the  most  blissful,  never  does  return,  but  seems 
to  be  buried  among  the  dead.  But  they  are 
not  dead — but  only  sleep;  though  to  us  who 
recall  them  not,  they  are  as  they  had  never 
been,  and  we,  wretched  ingrates,  let  them  Vre 
for  ever  in  oblivion !  How  passing  sweet 
when  of  their  own  accord  they  arise  to  greet 
us  in  our  solitude  ! — as  a  friend  who,  having 
sailed  away  to  a  foreign  land  in  our  youth, 
has  been  thought  to  have  died  many  long  years 
ago,  may  suddenly  stand  before  us,  with  face 
still  familiar  and  name  reviving  in  a  moment, 
and  all  that  he  once  was  to  us  brought  from 
utter  forgctfulness  close  upon  our  heart. 

My  Father's  House!  How  it  is  ringing 
like  a  grove  in  spring,  with  the  din  of  crea- 
tures happier,  a  thousand  times  happier,  than 


CHRISTMAS  DREAMS. 


273 


all  the  birds  on  earth.  It  is  the  Christmas  I 
Holidays — Christmas  Day  itself — Christmas  I 
Night — and  Joy  in  every  bosom  intensifies! 
Love.  Never  before  were  we  brothers  and 
sisters  so  dear  to  one  another — never  before 
had  our  hearts  so  yearned  towards  the  authors 
of  our  being — our  blissful  being!  There  they 
sit — silent  in  all  that  outcry — composed  in  all 
that  disarray — still  in  all  that  tumult;  yet,  as 
one  or  other  flying  imp  sweeps  round  the 
chair,  a  father's  hand  will  playfully  strive  to 
catch  a  prisoner — a  mother's  gentler  touch  on 
some  sylph's  disordered  symar  be  felt  almost 
as  a  reproof,  and  for  a  moment  slacken  the 
fairy-flight.  One  old  game  treads  on  the  heels 
of  another — twenty  within  the  hour — and  many 
a  new  game  never  heard  of  before  nor  since, 
struck  out  by  the  collision  of  kindred  spirits 
in  their  glee,  the  transitory  fancies  of  genius 
inventive  through  very  delight.  Then,  all  at 
once,  there  is  a  liush,  profound  as  ever  falls 
on  some  little  plat  within  a  forest  when  the 
moon  drops  behind  the  mountain,  and  small 
green-robed  People  of  Peace  at  once  cease 
their  pastime,  and  evanish.  For  she — the 
Silver-Tongued — is  about  to  sing  an  old  bal- 
lad, words  and  air  alike  hundreds  of  years 
old — and  sing  she  doth,  v.hile  tears  begin  to 
fall,  with  a  voice  too  mournfully  beautiful 
long  to  breathe  below — and,  ere  another 
Christmas  shall  have  come  with  the  falling 
snows,  doomed  to  be  mute  on  earth — but  to 
be  hymning  in  Heaven. 

Of  that  House — to  our  eyes  the  fairest  of 
earthly  dwellings — with  its  old  ivyed  turrets, 
and  orchard-garden  bright  alike  with  fruit  and 
with  flowers,  not  one  stone  remains.  The 
very  brook  that  washed  its  foundations  has 
vanished  along  with  them — and  a  crowd  of 
other  buildings,  wholly  without  character,  has 
long  stood  where  here  a  single  tree,  and  there 
a  grove,  did  once  render  so  lovely  that  small 
demesne ;  which,  how  could  we,  who  thought 
it  the  very  heart  of  Paradise,  even  for  one  mo- 
ment have  believed  was  one  da}'  to  be  blotted 
out  of  being,  and  we  ourselves — then  so  linked 
in  love  that  the  band  which  bound  us  altogether 
was,  in  its  gentle  pressure,  felt  not  nor  under- 
stood— to  be  scattered  far  and  abroad,  like  so 
many  leaves  that  after  one  wild  parting  rustle 
are  separated  by  roaring  wind-eddies,  and 
brought  together  no  more  !  The  old  Abbey — 
it  still  survives;  and  there,  in  that  corner  of 
the  burial-ground,  below  that  part  of  the  wall 
which  was  least  in  ruins,  and  which  we  often 
climbed  to  reach  the  flowers  and  nests — there, 
in  hopes  of  a  joyful  resurrection,  lie  the  Loved 
and  Venerated — for  whom,  even  now  that  so 
man}'  grief-deadening  years  have  fled,  we  feel, 
in  this  holy  hour,  as  if  it  were  impiety  so  ut- 
terly to  have  ceased  to  weep — so  seldom  to 
have  remembered! — And  then,  with  a  power- 
lessness  of  sympathy  to  keep  pace  with  youth's 
frantic  grief,  the  floods  we  all  wept  together — 
at  no  long  interval — on  those  pale  and  placid 
faces  as  the}'  lay,  most  beautiful  and  most 
dreadful  to  behold,  in  their  coffins. 

We  believe  that  there  is  genius  in  all  child- 
hood.    But  the  creative  joy  that  makes  it  great 
in   its   simplicity  dies   a  natural  death  or  is 
Slled,  and  genius  dies  with  it.     In  favoured 
35 


spirits,  neither  few  nor  many,  the  joy  and  the 
might  survive;  for  you  must  know  that  unless 
it  be  accompanied  with  imagination,  memory' 
is  cold  and  lifeless.  The  forms  it  brings  be- 
fore us  must  be  inspired  with  beauty — that  is, 
with  aff'ection  or  passion.  All  minds,  even  the 
dullest,  remember  the  days  of  their  youth;  but 
all  cannot  bring  back  the  indescribable  bright- 
ness of  that  blessed  seas  n.  They  who  would 
know  what  they  once  were,  must  not  merely 
recollect,  but  they  must  imagine,  the  hills  and 
valleys  —  if  any  such  there  were  —  in  which 
their  childhood  played,  the  torrents,  the  water- 
falls, the  lakes,  the  heather,  the  rocks,  the  hea- 
ven's imperial  dome,  the  raven  floating  only  a 
little  lowei*  than  the  eagle  in  the  sky.  To 
imagine  what  he  then  heard  and  saw,  he  must 
imagine  his  own  nature.  He  must  collect  from 
many  vanished  hours  the  power  of  his  untamed 
heart,  and  he  must,  perhaps,  transfuse  also 
something  of  his  maturer  mind  into  these 
dreams  of  his  former  being,  thus  linking  the 
past  with  the  present  by  a  continuous  chain, 
which,  though  often  invisible,  is  never  broken. 
So  is  it  too  with  the  calmer  aff'ections  that  have 
grown  within  the  shelter  of  a  roof.  We  do 
not  merely  remember,  we  imagine  our  father's 
house,  the  fireside,  all  his  features  then  most 
living,  now  dead  and  buried;  the  very  manner 
of  his  smile,  every  tone  of  his  voice.  We 
must  combine  with  all  the  passionate  and  plas- 
tic power  of  imagination  the  spirit  of  a  thou- 
sand happy  hours  into  one  moment;  and  we 
must  invest  with  all  that  we  ever  felt  to  be 
venerable  such  an  image  as  alone  can  satisfy 
our  filial  hearts.  It  is  thus  that  imagination, 
which  first  aided  the  growth  of  all  our  holiest 
and  happiest  alfections,  can  preserve  them  to 
us  unimpaired — 

"  For  she  can  give  us  back  the  dead, 
Even  in  the  loveliest  looks  they  wore." 

Then  came  a  New  Series  of  Christmases, 
celebrated,  one  year  in  this  family,  another 
year  in  that — none  present  but  those  whom 
Charles  Lamb  the  Delightful  calleth  the  "old 
familiar  faces  ;"  something  in  all  features,  and 
all  tones  of  voice,  and  all  manners,  betokening 
origin  from  one  root — relations  all,  happy,  and 
with  no  reason  either  to  be  ashamed  or  proud 
of  their  neither  high  nor  humble  birth — their 
lot  being  cast  within  that  pleasant  realm,  "  the 
Golden  Mean,"  where  the  dwellings  are  con- 
necting links  between  the  hut  and  the  hall — 
fair  edifices  resembling  manse  or  mansion- 
house,  according  as  the  atmosphere  expands 
or  contracts  their  dimensions — in  which  Com- 
petence is  next-door  neighbour  to  Wealth,  and 
both  of  them  within  the  daily  walk  of  Con- 
tentment. 

Merry  Christmases  they  were  indeed — one 
Lady  always  presiding,  with  a  figure  that  once 
had  been  the  stateliest  among  the  stately,  but 
then  somewhat  bent,  without  being  bowed 
down,  beneath  an  easy  weight  of  most  venera- 
ble years.  Sweet  was  her  tremulous  voice  to 
all  her  grandchildren's  ears.  Nor  did  these 
solemn  eyes,  bedimmed  into  a  pathetic  beauty, 
in  any  degree  restrain  the  glee  that  sparkleil 
in  orbs  that  had  as  yet  shed  not  many  tears, 
but  tears  of  joy  or  pity.  Dearly  she  loved  ali 
those  mortal  creatures  whom  she  was  soon 


a74 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


about  to  leave ;  but  she  sat  in  sunshine  even 
within  the  shadow  of  death ;  and  the  "  voice 
that  called  her  home"  had  so  long  been  whis- 
pering in  her  ear,  that  its  accents  had  become 
dear  to  her,  and  consolatory  every  word  that 
was  heard  in  the  silence,  as  from  another 
world. 

Whether  we  were  indeed  all  so  witty  as  we 
thought  ourselves — uncles,  aunts,  brothers,  sis- 
ters, nephews,  nieces,  cousins,  and  "  the  rest," 
it  might  be  presumptuous  in  us,  who  were 
considered  by  ourselves  and  a  few  others  not 
the  least  amusing  of  the  whole  set,  at  this 
distance  of  time  to  decide — especially  in  the 
affirmative;  but  how  the  roof  did  ring  with 
sally,  pun,  retort,  and  repartee  !  Ay,  with  pun 
— a  species  of  impertinence  for  which  we  have 
therefore  a  kindness  even  to  this  day.  Had 
incomparable  Thomas  Hood  had  the  good  for- 
tune to  have  been  born  a  cousin  of  ours,  how 
with  that  fine  fancy  of  his  would  he  have  shone 
at  those  Christmas  festivals,  eclipsing  us  all! 
Our  family,  through  .all  its  different  branches, 
has  ever  been  famous  for  bad  voices,  but  good 
ears;  and  we  think  we  hear  ourselves — all 
those  uncles  and  aunts,  nephews  and  nieces, 
and  cousins — singing  now!  Easy  is  it  to 
"warble  melody"  as  to  breathe  air.  But  we 
hope  harmony  is  the  most  difficult  of  all  things 
to  people  in  general,  for  to  us  it  was  impos- 
sible;  and  what  attempts  ours  used  to  beat 
Seconds!  Yet  the  most  woful  failures  were 
rapturously  encored;  and  ere  the  night  was 
done  wc  spoke  with  most  extraordinary  voices 
indeed,  every  one  hoarser  than  another,  till  at 
last,  walking  home  with  a  fair  cousin,  there 
M-as  nothing  left  for  it  but  a  tender  glance  of 
the  eye — a  tender  pressure  of  the  hand — for 
rousins  are  not  altogether  sisters,  and  although 
partaking  of  that  dearest  character,  possess,  it 
)nay  he,  some  peculiar  and  appropriate  charms 
cf  their  own;  as  didst  thou,  Emily  the  "  Wild- 
rap!" — That  sobriqvct  all  forgotten  now — for 
now  thou  art  a  matron,  nay  a  Grandam,  and 
troubled  with  an  elf  fair  and  frolicsome  as 
ihou  thyself  wert  of  yore,  when  the  gravest 
and  wisest  withstood  not  the  witchery  of  thy 
dancings,  thy  singings,  and  thy  showering 
smiles. 

On  rolled  Suns  and  Seasons — the  old  died — 
the  elderly  became  old — and  the  young,  one 
after  another,  were  wafted  joyously  away  on 
the  wings  of  hope,  like  birds  almost  as  soon 
as  they  can  fly,  ungratefully  forsaking  their 
nests  and  the  groves  in  whose  safe  shadow  the\' 
first  essayed  their  pinions;  or  like  pinnaces 
that,  after  having  for  a  few  days  trimmed  their 
snow-^vhiie  sails  in  the  land-locked  bay,  close 
to  whose  shores  of  silvery  sand  had  grown  the 
trees  that  furnished  timber  both  for  hull  and 
mast,  slip  their  tiny  cables  on  some  summer 
day,  and  gathering  every  breeze  that  blows,  go 
dancing  over  the  waves  in  sunshine,  and  melt 
far  oft"  into  the  main.  Or,  haply,  some  were 
like  fair  young  trees,  transplanted  during  no 
favourable  season,  and  never  to  take  root  in 
another  soil,  but  soon  leaf  and  branch  to  wither 
beneath  the  tropic  sun,  and  die  almost  un- 
heeded by  those  who  knew  not  how  beautiful 
lliey  had  been  beneath  the  dews  and  mists  of 
Mieir  own  native  climate. 


Vain  images!  and  therefore  chosen  b)' fancy 
not  too  painfully  to  touch  the  heart.  For  some 
hearts  grew  cold  and  forh'dding  with  selfish 
cares — some,  warm  as  ever  in  their  own  gen 
erous  glow,  were  touched  by  the  chill  of  For- 
tune's frowns,  ever  worst  to  bear  when  sud- 
denly succeeding  her  smiles — some,  to  rid 
themselves  of  painful  regrets,  took  refuge  in 
forgetfulness,  and  closed  their  eyes  to  the  past 
— duty  banished  some  abroad,  and  duty  impri- 
soned others  at  home — estrangements  there 
were,  at  first  unconscious  and  unintended,  yet 
erelong,  though  causeless,  complete — changes 
were  wrought  insensibly,  invisibly,  even  in  the 
innermost  nature  of  those  who  being  friends 
knew  no  guile,  yet  came  thereby  at  last  to  be 
friends  no  more — unrequited  love  broke  some 
bonds — requited  love  relaxed  others — the  death 
of  one  altered  the  conditions  of  many — and  so 
— year  after  year — the  Christmas  Meeting  was 
interrupted — deferred — till  finally  it  ceased 
with  one  accord,  unrenewed  and  un renewable. 
For  when  Some  Things  cease  for  a  time — that 
time  turns  out  to  be  for  ever. 

Survivors  of  those  happy  circles!  wherever 
ye  be — should  these  imperfect  remembrances 
of  days  of  old  chance,  in  some  thoughtful  pause 
of  life's  busy  turmoil,  for  a  moment  to  meet 
your  eyes,  let  there  be  towards  the  inditer  a 
few  throbs  of  revived  affection  in  your  hearts 
— for  his,  though  "  absent  long  and  distant  far," 
has  never  been  utterly  forgetful  of  the  loves 
and  friendships  that  charmed  his  youth.  To 
be  parted  in  body  is  not  to  be  estranged  in 
spirit — and  many  a  dream  and  many  a  vision, 
sacred  to  nature's  best  aflections,  may  pass 
before  the  mind  of  one  whose  lips  are  silent. 
"Out  of  sight  out  of  mind"  is  rather  the  ex- 
pression of  a  doubt — of  a  fear — than  of  a  belief 
or  a  conviction.  The  soul  surely  has  eyes 
that  can  see  the  objects  it  loves,  through  all 
intervening  darkness — and  of  those  more  es- 
pecially dear  it  keeps  within  itself  almost  un- 
dimmed  images,  on  which,  when  they  know  it 
not,  think  it  not,  believe  it  not,  it  often  loves  to 
gaze,  as  on  relics  imperishable  as  they  are 
hallowed. 

All  hail !  rising  beautiful  and  magnificent 
through  the  mists  of  morning — j-e  Woods, 
Groves,  Towers,  and  Temples,  overshadowing 
that  famous  Stream  beloved  by  all  the  Muses! 
Through  this  midnight  hush — methinks  we 
hear  faint  and  far  of!"  sacred  music — 

"  Whore  Hiroiiph  tlie  lone-drawn  aisle  and  fretted  vault. 
The  pealing  aiilhem  swells  the  note  of  praise  !" 

How  Steeped  now  in  the  stillness  of  moonlight 
are  all  those  pale,  pillared  Churches,  Courts 
and  Cloisters,  Shrines  and  Altars,  with  here 
and  there  a  Statue  standing  in  the  shade,  or 
Monument  sacred  to  the  memory  of  the  p'ous 
— the  immortal  dead.  Some  great  clock  is 
striking  from  one  of  many  domes — from  the 
majestic  Tower  of  St.  Mary  Magdalen — and  in 
the  deepened  hush  that  follows  the  solemn 
sound,  the  mingling  waters  of  the  Cherwell 
and  the  Isis  soften  the  severe  silence  of  the 
holy  night. 

Remote  from  kindred,  and  from  all  the 
friendships  that  were  the  native  growth  of  the 
fair  fields  where  our  boyhood  and  our  yojth 


CHRISTMAS  DREAMS. 


275 


had  roamed  and  meditated  and  dreamed,  those 
were  indeed  years  of  high  and  lofty  mood 
which  held  us  in  converse  with  the  shades  of 
great  Poets  and  ages  of  old  in  Rhedicyna's 
hallowed  groves,  still,  serene,  and  solemn,  as 
that  Attic  Academe  where  divine  Plato,  with 
all  Hybla  on  his  lips,  discoursed  such  excel- 
.ent  music  that  his  life  seemed  to  the  imagina- 
tion spiritualized — a  dim  reminiscence  of  some 
former  state  of  being.  How  sank  then  the 
Christmas  Service  of  that  beautiful  Liturgy 
into  our  hearts !  Not  faithless  we  to  the  sim- 
ple worship  that  our  forefathers  had  loved; 
but  Conscience  told  us  there  was  no  apostasy 
in  the  feelings  that  rose  within  us  when  that 
deep  organ  began  to  blow,  that  choir  of  youth- 
ful voices  so  sweetly  to  join  the  diapason, — 
our  eyes  fixed  all  the  while  on  that  divine  Pic- 
ture over  the  Altar,  of  our  Saviour 

"  Bearing  his  cross  up  rueful  Calvary." 

The  City  of  Palaces  disappears — and  in  the 
setting  sun-light  we  behold  mountains  of  soft 
crimson  snow!  The  sun  hath  set,  and  even 
more  beautiful  are  the  bright-starred  nights  of 
winter,  than  summer  in  all  its  glories  beneath 
the  broad  moons  of  June.  Through  the  woods 
of  Windermere,  from  cottage  to  cottage,  by 
coppice-pathways  winding  up  to  dwellings 
among  the  hill-rocks  where  the  birch-trees 
cease  to  grow — 

"  Nodding  their  heads,  before  us  go, 
The  merry  minstrelsy." 

They  sing  a  salutation  at  every  door,  familiar- 
ly naming  old  and  young  by  their  Christian 
names;  and  the  eyes  that  look  upward  from 
the  vales  to  the  hanging  huts  among  the  plats 
and  cliffs,  see  the  shadows  of  the  dancers  ever 
and  anon  crossing  the  light  of  the  star-like  win- 
dow, and  the  merry  music  is  heard  like  an 
echo  dwelling  in  the  sky.  Across  those  hum- 
ble thresholds  often  did  we  on  Christmas-week 
nights  of  yore — wandering  through  our  solitary 
silvan  haunts,  under  the  branches  of  trees 
within  whose  hollow  trunk  the  squirrel  slept — 
venture  in,  unasked  perhaps,  but  not  unwel- 
come, and,  in  the  kindly  spirit  of  the  season, 
did  our  best  to  merrify  the  Festival  by  tale  or 
song.  And  now  that  we  behold  them  not,  are 
all  those  woods,  and  cliffs,  and  rivers,  and 
tarns,  and  lakes,  as  beautiful  as  when  they 
softened  and  brightened  beneath  our  living 
eyes,  half-creating,  as  they  gazed,  the  very 
world  they  worshipped]  And  are  all  those 
hearths  as  bright  as  of  j'ore,  without  the  sha- 
dow of  our  figure  1  And  the  roofs,  do  they 
ring  as  mirthfully,  though  our  voice  be  forgot- 
ten] We  hang  over  Westmoreland,  an  un- 
observed— but  observant  star.  Mountains,  hills, 
rocks,  knolls,  vales,  woods,  groves,  single  trees, 
dwellings — all  asleep  !  O  Lakes  !  but  ye  are, 
indeed,  by  far  too  beautiful!  Ofortunate  Isles  ! 
too  fair  for  human  habitation,  fit  abode  for  the 
Blest !  It  will  not  hide  itself — it  will  not  sink 
into  the  earth — it  will  rise ;  and  risen,  it  will 
stand  steady  with  its  shadow  in  the  over- 
powering moonlight,  that  One  Tree  !  that  O.ve 
House  ! — and  well  might  the  sight  of  ye  two 
together — were  it  harder — break  our  heart. 
But  hard  at  aU  it  is  not — therefore  it  is  but 
crushed. 


Can  it  be  that  there  we  are  utterly  forgotten ! 
-No  star  hanging  higher  than  the  Andes  in  hea- 
ven— but  sole-sitting  at  midnight  in  a  small 
chamber — a  melancholy  man  are  we — and 
there  seems  a  smile  of  consolation,  O  Words- 
worth !  on  thy  sacred  Bust. 

Alas!  how  many  heavenly  days,  "seeming 
immortal  in  their  depth  of  rest,"  have  died  and 
been  forgotten  !  Treacherous  and  ungrateful  is 
our  memory  even  of  bliss  that  overflowed  our 
being  as  light  our  habitation.  Our  spirit's 
deepest  intercommunion  with  nature  has  no 
place  in  her  records — blanks  are  there  that 
ought  to  have  been  painted  with  imperishable 
imagery,  and  steeped  in  sentihient  fresh  as  the 
morning  on  life's  golden  hills.  Yet  there  is 
mercy  in  this  dispensation — for  who  can  bear 
to  behold  the  light  of  bliss  re-arising  from  the 
past  on  the  ghastlier  gloom  of  present  misery  1 
The  phantoms  that  will  not  come  when  we 
call  on  them  to  comfort  us,  are  too  often  at  our 
side  when  in  our  anguish  we  could  almost 
pray  that  they  might  be  reburied  in  oblivion. 
Such  hauntings  as  these  are  not  as  if  they 
were  visionary — they  come  and  go  like  forms 
and  shapes  still  imbued  Avith  life.  Shall  we 
vainly  stretch  out  our  arms  to  embrace  and 
hold  them  fast,  or  as  vainly  seek  to  intrench 
ourselves  by  thought  of  this  world  against  their 
visitation]  The  soul  in  its  sickness  knows 
not  whether  it  be  the  duty  of  love  to  resign  it- 
self to  indifference  or  to  despair.  Shall  it  en- 
joy life,  they  being  dead !  Shall  we,  the  sur- 
vivors, for  yet  a  little  while,  walk  in  other 
companionship  out  into  the  day,  and  let  the 
sunbeams  settle  on  their  heads  as  they  used 
to  do,  or  cover  them  with  dust  and  ashes,  and 
show  to  those  in  heaven  that  love  for  them  is 
now  best  expressed  by  remorse  and  penitence  ! 

Sometimes  we  have  fears  about  our  memory 
— that  it  is  decaying  ;  for,  lately,  many  ordinary 
yet  interesting  occurrences  and  events,  which 
we  regarded  at  the  time  with  pain  or  pleasure, 
have  been  slipping  away  almost  into  oblivion, 
and  have  often  alarmed  us  of  a  sudden  by 
their  return,  not  to  any  act  of  recollection,  but 
of  themselves,  sometimes  wretchedly  out  of 
place  and  season,  the  mournful  obtruding  upon 
the  merry,  and  worse,  the  merry  upon  the 
mournful — confusion,  by  no  fault  of  ours,  of 
piteous  and  of  gladsome  faces — tears  where 
smiles  were  a  duty  as  well  as  a  delight,  and 
smiles  where  nature  demanded,  and  religion 
hallowed,  a  sacrifice  of  tears. 

For  a  good  many  years  we  have  been  tied  to 
town  in  winter  by  fetters  as  fine  as  frostwork 
filigree,  which  we  could  not  break  without  de- 
stroying a  whole  world  of  endearment.  That 
seems  an  obscure  image;  but  it  means  what  the 
Germans  would  call  in  English— our  winter 
environment.  We  are  imprisoned  in  a  net  of 
our  own  weaving — an  invisible  net;  yet  we 
can  see  it  when  we  choose — just  as  a  bird  can 
see,  when  he  chooses,  the  wires  of  his  cage, 
that  are  invisible  in  his  happiness,  as  he  keeps 
hopping  and  fluttering  about  all  day  long,  or 
haply  dreaming  on  his  perch  with  his  poll 
under  his  plumes — as  free  in  confinement  as 
if  let  loose  into  the  boundless  sky.  That  seems 
an  obscure  image  too  ;  but  we  mean,  in  truth, 
the  prison  unto  which  we  doom  ourselves  no 


276 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


prison    is;  and   we   have   improved   on   that  l  ritual  eye,  reflecting  the  heavens  and  the  earth  ; 
idea,  for  we  have  built  our  own — and  are  pri-    and  no  one  knows  what  the  heavens  and  the 


soner,  turnkey,  and  jailer  all  in  one,  and  'l 
noiseless  as  the  house  of  sleep.  Or  what  if 
we  declare  that  Christopher  North  is  a  kin<j 
in  his  palace,  with  no  subjects  but  his  own 
thoughts — his  rule  peaceful  over  those  lig;hts 
and  shadows — and  undisputed  to  reign  over 
them  his  right  divine. 

The  opening  year  in  a  town,  now  answers 


earth  are,  till  he  has  seen  them  there — for  that 
God  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth  we  feel 
from  that  beautiful  revelation — and  where 
feeling  is  not,  knowledge  is  dead,  and  a  blank 
the  universe.  Love  is  life.  The  unloving 
merely  breathe.  A  single  sweet  beat  of  the 
heart  is  token  of  something  spiritual  that  will 
be  with  us  again  in  Paradise.     "  O,  bliss  and 


in  all  things  to  our  heart's  desire.     How  beau- i  beauty  !  are  these  our  feelings" — thought   we 


liful  the  smoky  air!  The  clouds  have  a  home- 
ly look  as  they  hang  over  the  happy  families  of 
houses,  and  seem  as  if  they  loved  their  birth- 
place;— all  unlrke  those  heartless  clouds  that 
keep  strnvaigging  over  mountain-tops,  and  have 
no  domicile  in  the  sky  !  Poets  speak  of  living 
rocks,  but  what  is  their  life  to  that  of  houses'? 
Who  ever  saw  a  rock  with  eyes — that  is,  M-ilh 
windows?  Stone-blind  all,  and  stone-deaf,  and 
with  hearts  of  stone;  whereas  who  ever  saw 
a  house  without  eyes — that  is,  windows  ?  Our 
own  is  an  Argus;  yet^the  good  old  Conserva- 
tive grudges  not  the  assessed  taxes — his  optics 
are  as  cheerful  as  the  day  that  lends  them 
light,  and  they  love  to  salute  the  setting  sun, 
as  if  a  hundred  beacons,  level  above  level, 
were  kindled  along  a  mountain  side.  He  might 
safely  be  pronounced  a  madman  who  preferred 
an  avenue  of  trees  to  a  street.  Why,  trees 
have  no  chimneys ;  and,-  were  you  to  kindle 
a  fire  in  the  hollow  of  an  oak,  you  would 
soon  be  as  dead  as  a  Druid.  It  won't  do  to 
talk  to  us  of  sap,  and  the  circulation  of 
sap.  A  grove  in  winter,  bole  and  branch — 
leaves  it  has  none — is  as  dry  as  a  volume  of 
sermons.  But  a  street,  or  a  square,  is  full  of 
"vital  sparks  of  heavenly  (lame  "as  a  volume 
of  poetry,  and  the  heart's  blood  circulates 
through  the  system  like  rosy  wine. 

But  a  truce  to  comparisons;  for  we  are  be- 
ginning to  feel  contrition  for  our  crime  against 
the  country,  and,  with  humbled  head  and  heart, 
we  beseech  you  to  pardon  us — ye  rocks  of  Pa- 
vey-Ark,  the  pillared  palaces  of  the  storms — 
ve  clouds,  now   wreathing  a  diadem   for  the 


once  in  a  dream — "all  circling  in  the  sunshine 
— fair  plumed  in  a  llight  of  doves  !''  The  vi- 
sion kept  sailing  on  the  sky — "  to  and  fro  for 
our  delight" — no  sound  on  their  wings  more 
than  on  their  breasts;  and  they  melted  away 
in  light  as  if  they  were  composed  of  light — and 
in  the  hush  we  heard  high  up  and  far-off  mu- 
sic— as  of  an  angel's  song. 

That  was  a  dream  of  the  mysterious  night; 
but  now  we  are  broad  awake — and  see  no  em- 
blematical phantoms,  but  the  mere  sights  of 
the  common  day.  But  sufficient  for  the  day  is 
the  beauty  thereof— and  it  inspires  us  with  af- 
fection fir  all  beneath  the  skies.  Will  the 
whole  world,  then,  promise  henceforth  to  love 
us? — and  we  promise  henceforth  to  love  the 
whole  world. 

li  seems  the  easiest  of  all  easy  things  to  be  kind 
and  good — and  then  it  is  so  pleasant !  "  Self- 
love  and  social  are  the  same,"  beyond  all  ques- 
tion ;  and  in  that  lies  the  nobiljiy  of  our  nature. 
The  intensest  feeling  of  self  is  that  of  belong- 
ing to  a  brotherhood.  All  selves  then  know 
they  have  duties  which  are  in  truth  loves — and 
loves  are  joys — whether  breathed  in  silence,  or 
uttered  in  words,  or  imbodied  in  actions;  and 
if  they  filled  all  life,  then  all  life  would  be 
good — and  heaven  would  be  no  more  than  a 
better  earth.  .And  how  may  all  men  go  to  hea- 
ven ?  By  making  themselves  a  heaven  on 
earth,  and  thus  preparing  their  spirits  to  breathe 
empyreal  air  when  they  have  dropped  the  dust. 
.\nd  how  may  they  make  for  themselves  a 
heaven  on  earth?  By  building  up  a  happy 
HOME  FOR  TiiK  iiF.AnT.  Much,  but  not  all — oh  ! 
not  nearlv  all — is  in  the  site.     But  it  must  be 

and 


forehead  of  Helvellyn — ye  trees,  that  hang  the 

shadows  of  your  undyingbeauty  over  the  "one  ]  within  the  precincts  of  the  holy  ground 

perfect  chrysolite,"  of  blessed  Wiiulerinere  !      j  within  hearing  of  the  waters  of  life. 

Our  meaning  is  transparent  now  as  the  hand  I  Pleasures  of  Imagination  !  Pleasures  of 
of  an  apparition  waving  peace  and  good-will  Memory' !  Pleasures  of  Hope!  All  three 
to  all  dwellers  in  the  land  of  dreams.  In  plainer  j  most  deliirhiful  poems;  yet  all  the  thoughts 
but  not  simpler  words,  (for  words  are  like 
flowers,  often  rich  in  their  simplicity — witness 


the  Lily,  and  Solomon's  Song) — Christian 
people  all,  we  wish  j-ou  a  Merry  Christmas 
and  Happy  New-Year,  in  town  or  in  country — 
or  in  ships  at  sea. 

A  Happy  New-Year! — Ah!  ere  this  Aria, 
sung  fotio  i-cce,  reach  your  ears,  (eyes  are  ears, 
and  ears  are  e)'es,)  the  week  of  all  weeks  will 
be  over  and  gone,  and  the  New-Year  will  seem 
growing  out  of  the  old  year's  ashes! — for  the 
year  is  your  only  Phoenix.  But  what  with  time 
to  do  has  a  wish — a  hope — a  prayer!  Their 
power  is  in  the  Spirit  that  gives  them  birth. 
And  what  is  Spirit  but  the  well-head  of  thoughts 
and  feelings  flowing  and  overflowing  all  life, 
vet  leaving  the  well-head  full  of  water  as  ever 
— so  lucid,  that  on  your  gazing  intently  into  its 
depths,  it  seems  to  become  a  large  soft  spi- 


and  all  the  feelin-js  that  in-^pired  them — ethe- 
realized — will  not  make  faith!  "The  day- 
spring  from  on  high  hath  visited  us!"  Blessed 
is  he  who  feels  that  line — nor  need  his  heart 
die  within  him,  were  a  voice  to  be  heard  at 
midnisiht  saving — "  This  New-Year's  day  shall 
be  thy  last !" 

One  voice — one  j-oung  voice—  all  by  its 
sweet,  sad,  solitary  self,  singing  tons  a  Christ- 
mas Hymn  !  Listening  to  that  music  is  like 
looking  at  the  sky  with  all  its  stars. 

Was  it  a  spirit  ? 

"  Millions  of  <ipiriliial  crp.Ttiiros  w.ilk  iinseeD, 
.'Sole  or  rp«i>onsi%'o  to  racli  oilier's  voice, 
Ilymning  ilieir  great  Creator." 

No,  the  singer,  like  ourselves,  is  mortal ;  and 
in  that  thought,  to  our  hearts,  lies  the  pathos 
of  her  pro  vers.    The  angels,  veiling  their  faces 


CHRISTMAS  DREAMS. 


277 


with  their  wings,  sing  in  their  bliss  hallelujahs 
round  the  throne  of  heaven ;  but  she — a  poor 
child  of  clay,  with  her  face  veiled  but  with  the 
shades  of  humility  and  contrition,  while 

"  Some  natural  tears  she  drops,  but  wipes  them  soon," — 

sings,  in  her  sorrow,  supplications  to  be  suffer- 
ed to  see  afar-off"  its  everlasting  gates — open- 
ing not  surely  for  her  own  sake — for  all  of 
woman  born  are  sinful — and  even  she  in  what 
love  calls  her  innocence  feels  that  her  fallen 
being  does  of  itself  deserve  but  to  die.  The 
hymn  is  fading  away,  liker  and  liker  an  echo, 
and  our  spirit  having  lost  it  in  the  distance, 
returns  back  holier  to  the  heart-hush  of  home  ! 

The  million  hunger  and  thirst  after  the 
stronger  and  darker  passions;  nothing  will  go 
down  with  them  but  the  intense.  They  are  in- 
tolerant— or  careless — or  even  ashamed  of 
those  emotions  and  alTections  that  compose  the 
blessing  of  our  daily  life,  and  give  its  lustre  to 
the  fire  on  the  hearth  of  every  Christian  house- 
hold. Yet,  for  all  that,  they  are  inexperienced 
in  those  same  stronger  and  darker  passions  of 
which  they  prate,  and  know  nothing  of  the 
import  of  those  pictures  of  them  painted,  with 
background  of  gloom  and  foreground  of  fire, 
in  the  works  of  the  truly  great  masters.  The 
distusbed  spirit  of  such  delineations  is  far  be- 
yond the  reaches  of  their  souls  ;  and  they  mis- 
take their  own  senseless  stupor  for  solemn 
awe — or  their  own  mere  physical  excitement 
for  the  enthusiasm  of  imagination  soaring 
through  the  storm  on  the  wings  of  intellect. 
There  are  such  things  in  "Satan's  Invisible 
World  Displayed"  in  poetry,  as  strong  and 
dark  passions;  and  they  who  are  acquainted 
with  their  origin  and  fv.i  call  them  bad  pas- 
sions ;  but  the  good  passions  are  not  dark,  but 
bright — and  they  are  strong  too,  stronger  than 
death  or  the  grave. 

All  human  beings  who,  know  how  to  reap 

"  The  harvest  of  a  quiet  eye. 
That  broods  and  sleeps  on  its  own  heart," 

feel,  by  the  touch,  the  flowers-  of  affection  in 
every  hrtndful  of  beauty  the)'  gather  up  from 
those  fortunate  fields  on  which  shines,  for  ever 
through  all  seasons,  the  sun  of  life.  How  soft 
the  leaves !  and,  as  they  meet  the  eye,  how 
fair  !  Framed,  so  might  it  seem,  of  green  dew 
consolidated  into  fragrance.  Nor  do  they  fade 
when  gently  taken  from  their  stalk  on  its  na- 
tive bed.  They  flourish  for  ever  if  you  bruise 
them  not — sensitive  indeed  ;  and,  if  you  are  so 
forgetful  as  to  treat  them  rashly,  like  those  of 
the  plant  that  bears  that  name,  they  shrink,  and 
seem  to  shrivel  for  a  lime — growing  pale,  as  if 
upbraiding  your  harshness  ;  but  cherished,  they 
are  seen  to  be  all  of 

"Immortal  amaranth,  the  tree  that  grows 
Fast  by  the  throne  of  God  ;" 

for  the  seeds  have  fallen  from  heaven  to  earth, 
and  for  eighteen  hundred  years  have  been 
spreading  themselves  over  all  soils  fit  for  their 
reception — and  what  soil  is  not  fit?  Even  fit 
are  stony  places,  and  places  full  of  thorns. 
For  they  will  live  and  grow  there  in  spite  of 
such  obstruction — and  among  rank  and  matted 
weeds  will  often  be  seen  peering  out  like  prim- 
roses gladdening  the  desert. 


That  voice  again—"  One  of  old  Scotland's 
songs,  so  sad  and  slow !"  Her  heart  is  now 
blamelessly  with  things  of  earth.  "Sad  and 
slow !"  and  most  purely  sweet.  Almost  mourn- 
ful although  it  be,  it  breathes  of  happiness — 
for  the  joy  dearest  to  the  soul  has  ever  a  faint 
tinge  of  grief.  O  innocent  enchantress  !  thou 
encirclest  us  with  a  wavering  haze  of  beauti- 
ful imagery,  by  the  spell  of  that  voice  awaken- 
ing after  a  mood  of  awe,  but  for  thy  own  de- 
light. From  the  long  dim  tracts  of  the  past 
come  strangely  blended  recognitions  of  woe 
and  bliss,  undislinguishable  now  to  our  own 
heart — nor  knows  that  heart  if  it  be  a  dream 
of  imagination  or  of  memory.  Yet  why  should 
we  wonder]  In  our  happiest  hours  there  may 
have  been  something  in  common  with  mir 
most  sorrowful — some  shade  of  sadness  cast 
over  them  by  a  passing  cloud,  that  now  allies 
them  in  retrospect  with  the  sombre  spirit  of 
grief;  and  in  our  unhappiest  hours  there  may 
have  been  gleams  of  gladness,  that  seem  now 
to  give  the  return  the  calm  character  of  peace. 
Do  not  all  thoughts  and  feelings,  almost  all 
events,  seem  to  resemble  each  other — wheix 
they  are  dreamt  of  as  all  past  1  All  receive  a 
sort  of  sanctification  in  the  stillness  of  the 
time  that  has  gone  by — just  like  the  human 
being  whom  they  adorned  or  degraded — when 
they,  too,  are  at  last  buried  together  in  the  bo- 
som of  the  same  earth. 

Perhaps  none  among  us  ever  wrote  verses 
of  any  worth,  who  had  not  been,  more  or  less, 
readers  of  our  old  ballads.  All  our  poets  have 
been  so — and  even  Wordsworth  would  not  have 
been  the  veritable  and  only  Wordsworth,  had 
he  not  in  boyhood  pored — oh,  the  miser! — over 
Percy's  Reliques.  From  the  highest  to  the 
humblest,  they  have  all  drunk  from  those  silver 
springs.  Shepherds  and  herdsmen  and  woods- 
men have  been  the  masters  of  the  mighty — 
their  strains  have,  like  the  voice  of  a  solitary 
lute,  inspired  a  power  of  sadness  into  the 
hearts  of  great  poets  that  gave  their  genius  to 
be  prevalent  over  all  tears,  or  with  a  power  of 
sublimity  that  gave  it  dominion  over  all  terror, 
like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet.  The  Babes  in 
the  Wood  !  Chevy  Chace  !  Men  become  wo- 
men while  they  weep — 

"  Or  start  up  heroes  from  the  glorious  strain." 

Sing  then,  "The  Dirge,"  my  Margaret,  to 
the  Old  Man,  "  so  tender  and  so  true"  to  the 
spirit  of  those  oW  ballads,  which  one  might 
think  were  written  by  Pity's  self. 

DIRGE. 

"  O  dig  a  grave,  and  dig  it  deep. 
Where  I  and  my  true  love  may  sleep! 
We'll  dig  a  grave  and  dig  it  deep, 
Where  thou  and  thy  true  love  shall  sleep ! 

"  And  let  it  he  five  fathom  low. 
Where  winter  winds  may  never  blow  !-  ■ 
And  it  shall  be  five  fiithom  low, 
Where  winter  winds  shall  never  blow  ! 

"  And  let  it  be  on  yonder  hill, 
Where  grows  the  mountain  daffodil ! 
And  it  shall  be  on  yonder  hill. 
Where  grows  the  mountain  daffodil ! 

"And  plant  it  round  with  holy  briers. 
To  frisht  awav  the  fairy  fires  ! — 

We'll  plant  "it  round  with  holy  briers  ! 
To  fright  away  the  fairy  fires  '. 
2  A 


278 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


"And  set  it  round  with  celandine, 
And  nodding  heads  of  columbine  ! — 
We'll  set  U  round  with  celandine, 
And  nodding  heads  of  columbine! 

"  And  let  the  ruddock  build  his  nest 
Just  above  my  true  love's  breast  1 — 
The  ruddock  he  shall  build  his  nest 
Just  above  thy  true  love's  breast; 

"  And  warble  his  sweet  wintry  song 
O'er  our  dwelling  all  day  long  ! 
And  he  shall  warble  his  sweet  song 
O'er  your  dwelling  all  day  long. 

"  Now,  tender  friends,  my  garments  take, 
And  lay  me  out  for  Jesus's  sake  ! 
And  we  will  now  thy  garments  take. 
And  lay  thee  out  for  Jesus'  sake. 

"And  lay  me  by  my  true  love's  side, 
"That  I  may  be  a  faithful  bride : — 

We'll  lay  thee  by  thy  true  love's  side. 
That  thou  niay'st  be'a  faithful  bride!" 

Ay — ay — thou  too  art  frone,  William  Stax- 
lET  RoscoK !  What  years  have  flown  since 
we  walked  among  the  "alleys  green"  of  Al- 
lerton  with  thee  and  thy  illustrious  father!  and 
who  ever  conversed  with  liim  for  a  few  hours 
in  and  about  his  own  home — where  the  stream 
of  life  flowed  on  so  full  and  clear — without 
carrying  away  impressions  that  never  seemed 
to  be  remembrances^so  vivid  have  they  re- 
mained amidbt  the  obscurations  and  oblitera- 
tions of  time,  that  sweeps  with  his  wings  all 


that  lies  on  the  surface,  but  has  no  power  to 
disturb,  much  less  destroy,  the  record  printed 
on  the  heart. 

We  are  all  of  us  getting  old — or  older;  not 
would  we,  for  our  own  part — if  we  could — re- 
new our  youth.  Meihinks  the  river  of  life  is 
nobler  as  it  nears  the  sea.  The  young  are 
dancing  in  their  skifls  on  the  pellucid  shallows 
near  the  source  on  the  Sacred  Mountains  of 
the  Golden  East.  They  whose  lot  it  is  to  be  in 
their  prime,  are  dropping  down  the  longer  and 
wider  reaches,  that  seem  wheeling  by  with 
their  silvan  amphitheatres,  as  if  the  beauty 
were  moving  mornwards,  while  the  voyagers 
are  stationary  among  the  shadows,  or  slowly 
descending  the  stream  to  meet  the  meridian 
day.     Many  forget 

"  The  torrent's  smoothness  ere  it  dash  below," 

and  are  lost  in  the  roaring  whirlpool.  Under 
Providence,  we  see  ourselves  on  the  river  ex- 
panded into  a  sealike  lake,  or-  arm  of  the 
sta;  and  fur  all  our  soul  has  escaped  and  suf- 
fered, we  look  up  to  the  stars  in  gratitude — and 
down  to  the  stars — for  the  water  too  is  full  of 
stars  as  well  as  the  sky — faint  and  dim  indeed 
— but  blended,  by  the  pervading  spirit  of 
beauty,  with  the  brighter  and  bolder  lumina- 
ries reposing  on  infinitude.  # 


OUU  WINTEK  aUARTEKS. 


BuciiAXAJs  Lonr.i  -for  a  few  months — fare- 
well !  "i'is  the  Tweinh  of  November;  and  for 
the  City  we  leave  thee  not  without  reluctance, 
early  in  March  by  the  blessing  of  Heaven  again 
to  creep  into  thy  blooming  bourne.  Yet  now 
and  then  we  shall  lake  a  drive  down,  to  while 
away  a  sunny  forenoon  aimmg  thy  undecaying 
evergreens,  to  lireaihe  the  balm  of  thy  Christ- 
mas roses,  and  for  one  Goi/lr  bosom  to  cull  the 
earliest  crocuses  that  may  be  yellowing  through 
the  thin  snows  of  Spring. 

In  truth,  we  know  not  well  why  we  sliould 
ever  leave  thee,  for  thou  art  the  Darling  of  ail 
the  Seasons ;  and  \^'inlcr,  so  churlish  else- 
where, is  ever  bland  to  thee,  and,  daily  alicht- 
ing  in  these  gardens,  loves  to  fold  and  unfcdd, 
in  the  cool  sunshine,  the  stainless  splendour 
of  his  pale-plumaged  wings.  But  we  are  no 
hermit.  Dear  to  us  though  Nature  be,  here, 
hand-in-hand  with  Art  walking  through  our 
peaceful  but  not  unpeopled  Polict,  a  voice 
'•omes  to  us  from  the  city-heart — winning  us 
away  from  the  stillness  of  solitude  into  the  stir 
of  life.     Milton  speaks  of  a  region 

"Above  the  stir  and  smoke  of  this  dim  spot. 
Which  men  call  Earth  ;" 

and  oft  have  we  visited  it;  but  while  yet  we 
pursue  the  ends  of  this  our  mortal  being,  in 
the  mystery  of  the  brain  whence  ideas  arise, 
and  in  the  mystery  of  the  heart  whence  emo- 
tions flow — kindred  and  congenial  all — thought 
ever  blending  with  feeling,  reason  with  imagi- 
nation, and  conscience  with  jiassion — 'lis  our 
duty  to  draw  our  delight  from  intercommunion 


with  the  spirit  of  vUr  kind.  Weakest  or 
wickedest  of  mortals  are  your  soul-sick,  life- 
loathing,  world-wearied  men.  In  solitude  we 
are  prone  to  be  swallowed  up  in  selfishness; 
and  out  of  selfishness  what  sins  and  crimes 
may  not  grow!  At  the  best,  moral  stagnation 
ensues — and  the  spirit  becomes,  like  "  a  green- 
manllcd  pool,"  the  abode  of  reptiles.  Then 
ever  welcome  to  us  be  living  faces,  and  living 
voices,  the  light  and  the  music  of  realit)' — 
dearer  far  than  any  mere  ideas  or  emotions 
hanging  or  floating  aloof  by  themselves  in  the 
atmosphere  of  imagination.  Blest  b€  the  cor- 
dial grasp  of  the  hand  of  friendship— blest  the 
tender  embrace  of  the  arms  of  love!  Nay, 
smile  not,  fair  reader,  at  an  old  man's  fervour; 
for  Love  is  a  gracious  spirit,  who  deserteth 
not  declining  age. 

The  DiiosKT  is  at  the  door — and,  my  eye! 
what  a  figure  is  Peter!  There  he  sits,  like  a 
bear,  with  the  ribands  in  his  paws — no  part 
visible  of  his  human  face  or  form  divine,  but 
his  small  red  eyes — and  his  ruby  nose,  whose 
re-grown  enormity  laughs  at  Lision.  One  lit- 
tle month  ago,  the  knife  of  that  skilful  chirur- 
scon  pared  it  down  to  the  dimensions  of  a 
Christian  proboscis.  Again  'tis  like  a  wart  on 
a  frost-reddened  Swedish  turnip.  Pretty  Poll, 
with  small  delicate  pale  features,  sits  beside 
him  like  a  snowdrop.  How  shaggy  since  he 
returned  from  our  last  Highland  tour  is  Filho 
da  Puta!  His  name  long  as  his  tail — and  the 
hair  on  his  ears  like  that  on  his  fetlocks.  He 
absolutely  reminds   us    of  Hogg's   Bonassus. 


OUR  WINTER  QUARTERS 


279 


Ay,  bless  these  patent  steps — on  the  same  prin- 
ciple as  those  by  which  we  ascend  our  nightly 
couch — we  are  self-deposited  in  our  Drosky. 
Oh  !  the  lazy  luxury  of  an  air-seat !  We  seem 
to  be  sitting  on  nothing  but  a  voluptuous 
warmth,  restorative  as  a  bath.  And  then  what 
furry  softness  envelopes  our  feet!  Yes — Mrs. 
Gentle — Mrs.  Gentle — thy  Cashmere  shawl, 
twined  round  our  bust,  feels  almost  as  silken- 
smoothe  as  thine  own,  and  scented  is  it  with 
the  balm  of  thy  own  lips.  Boreas  blows  on  it 
tenderly  as  a  zephyr — and  the  wintry  sunshine 
seems  summery  as  it  plays  on  the  celestial 
colours.  Thy  pelisse,  too,  over  our  old  happy 
shoulders,  purple  as  the  neck  of  the  dove  when 
careering  round  his  mate.  Thy  comforter, 
too,  in  our  bosom — till  the  dear,  delightful,  de- 
licious, wicked  worsted  thrills  through  skin 
and  flesh  to  our  very  heart.  It  dirls.  Drive 
away,  Peter.  Farewell  Lodge — and  welcome, 
in  a  jiffy,  Moray  Place. 

And  now,  doucely  and  decently  sitting  in  our 
Drosky,  behold  us  driven  by  Peter,  proud  as 
Punch  to  tool  along  the  staring  streets  the 
great-grandson  of  the  Desert-born!  Yet — yet 
— couldst  thou  lead  the  field,  Filho,  with  old 
Filho,  with  old  Kit  Castor  on  thy  spine.  But 
though  our  day  be  not  quite  gone  by,  we  think 
We  see  the  stealing  shades  of  eve,  and,  a  little 
further  on  in  the  solemn  vista,  the  darkness  of 
night;  and  therefore,  like  wise  children  of 
nature,  not  unproud  of  the  past,  not  ungrateful 
for  the  present,  and  unfearful  of  the  future, 
thus  do  we  now  skim  along  the  road  of  life, 
broad  and  smooth  to  our  heart's  content,  able 
to  pay  the  turnpikes,  and  willing,  when  we 
shall  have  reached  the  end  of  our  journey,  to 
lie  down,  in  hope,  at  the  goal. 

What  pretty,  little,  low  lines  of  garden- 
fronted  cottages!  leading  us  along  out  of  rural 
into  suburban  cheerfulness,  across  the  Bridge, 
and  past  the  Oriental-looking  Oil-Gas  Works, 
with  a  sweep  winding  into  the  full  view  of 
Pitt  Street,  (what  a  glorious  name  !)  steep  as 
some  straight  cliff-glen,  and  an  approach  trul}'' 
majestic — yea,  call  it  at  once  magnificent — 
right  up  to  the  great  city's  heart.  "There  goes 
Old  Christopher  North  !"  the  bright  boys  in  the 
playground  of  the  New  Academy  exclaim. 
God  bless  you,  you  little  rascals! — We  could 
almost  find  it  in  our  heart  to  ask  the  Rector  for 
a  holiday.  But,  under  him,  all  your  days  are 
holidays — for  when  the  precious  hours  of 
study  are  enlightened  by  a  classic  spirit,  how 
naturally  do  they  melt  into  those  of  play ! 

"Gay  hope  is  yours,  liy  fancy  fed. 

Less  pleasin:;  when  possest  ; 
The  tear  forsot  as  soon  as  shed. 

The  siinsliine  of  the  breast ; 
Yours  huxoni  health,  of  rosy  hue. 
Wild  wit,  invention  ever  new. 

And  lively  cheer,  of  vicoiir  born  ; 
The  thoMshilpss  day,  the  easy  nicht. 
The  spirits  pure,  the  slumbers  liffht, 

That  fly  th'  approach  of  morn." 

Descending  from  ottr  Drosky,  we  find  No. 
99,  Moray  Place,  exhibiting  throughout  all  its 
calm  interior  the  selfsame  expression  it  wore 
the  day  we  left  it  for  the  Lodge,  eight  mnnlhs 
ago.  There  is  our  venerable  winter  Hat — as 
like  Ourselves,  it  is  said,  as  he  can  stare — sit- 
ting  on  the   Circular   in    the    Entrance-hall. 


Every  thing  has  been  tenderly  djsted  as  if  by 
hands  that  touched  with  a  Sabbath  feeling; 
and  though  the  furniture  cannot  be  said  to  be 
new,  yet  while  it  is  in  all  sobered,  it  is  in  no- 
thing faded.  You  are  at  first  unaware  of  its 
richness  on  account  of  its  simplicity — its  srace. 
is  felt  gradually  to  grow  out  of  its  comfort — 
and  that  which  you  thought  but  ease  lightens 
into  elegance,  while  there  is  but  one  image  iu 
nature  which  can  adequately  express  its  repose 
— that  of  a  hill-sheltered  field  by  sunset,  under 
a  fresh-fallen  vest  of  virgin  snow.  For  then 
snow  blushes  with  a  faint  crimson — nay,  some- 
times when  Sol  is  extraordinarily  splendid, 
not  faint,  but  with  a  gorgeousness  of  colouring 
that  fears  not  to  face  in  rivalry  the  western 
clouds. 

Let  no  man  have  two  houses  with  one  set 
of  furniture.  Home's  deepest  delight  is  undis- 
turbance.  Some  people  think  no  articles  fix- 
tures— not  even  grates.  But  sofas  and  otto- 
mans, and  chairs  and  footstools,  and  screens — 
and  above  all,  beds — all  are  fixtures  in  the 
dwelling  of  a  wise  man,  cognoscitive  and  sen- 
sitive of  the  blessings  of  this  life.  Each  has 
its  own  place  assigned  to  it  by  the  taste,  tact, 
and  feeling  of  the  master  of  the  mansion, 
where  order  and  elegance  minister  to  comfort, 
and  comfort  is  but  a  homely  word  for  happi- 
ness. In  various  moods  we  vary  their  arrange- 
ment— nor  is  even  the  easiest  of  all  Easj-- 
chairs  secure  for  life  against  being  gently 
pushed  on  his  wheels  from  chimney-nook  to 
window-corner,  when  the  sunshine  may  have 
extinguished  the  fire,  and  the  blue  sky  tempts 
the  Pater-fcimilias,  or  him  who  is  but  an  uncle, 
to  lie  back  with  half-shut  eyes,  and  gaze  upon 
the  cheerful  purity,  even  like  a  shepherd  on 
the  hill.  But  these  little  occasional  disarrange- 
ments serve  but  to  preserve  the  spirit  of  per- 
manent arrangement,  without  which  the  very 
virtue  of  domesticity  dies.  What  sacrilege, 
therefore,  against  the  Lares  and  Penates,  to 
turn  a  whole  house  topsy-turvy,  from  garret  to 
cellar,  regularly  as  May-flowers  deck  the  zone 
of  the  year!  Why,  a  Turkey  or  a  Persian,  or 
even  a  Wilton  or  a  Kidderminster  carpet  is  as 
much  the  garb  of  the  wooden  floor  inside,  as 
the  grass  is  of  the  earthen  floor  outside  of  your 
house.  Would  you  lift  and  lay  down  the 
greensward?  But  without  further  illustration 
— be  assured  the  cases  are  kindred — and  so, 
too,  with  sofas  and  shrubs,  tent-beds  and  trees. 
Independently,  however,  of  these  analogies,  not 
fanciful,  but  lying  deep  in  the  nature  of  things, 
the  inside  of  one's  tabernacle,  in  town  and 
country,  ought  ever  to  be  sacred  from  all  radi- 
cal revolutionary  movements,  and  to  lie  for 
ever  in  a  waking  dream  of  graceful  repose. 
All  our  affections  towards  lifeless  things  be- 
come tenderer  and  deeper  iu  the  continuous 
and  unbroken  flow  of  domestic  habit.  The 
eye  gets  lovingly  familiarized  with  each  object 
occupying  its  own  peculiar  and  appropriate 
place,  and  feels  in  a  moment  when  the  most 
insignificant  is  missing  or  removed.  We  say 
not  a  word  about  children,  for  fortunately, 
since  we  are  yet  unmarried,  we  have  none; 
but  even  they,  if  brought  up  Christians,  are  no 
dissenters  from  this  creed,  and  however  rackety 
in  the  nurserv.  in  an  orderly  kept  parlour  or 


280 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


drawing-room  how  like  so  many  prett}-  little 
white  mice   do  they  glide    cannily  along  the 
floor!     Let  no  such  horror,  then,  as  a.  fliuing 
ever  befall  us  or  our  frieiuis  !     O  mercy  !  only 
look  at  a  long  huge  train  of  wagons,  heaped 
up  to  the  windows  of  the  first  floors,  moving 
along  the  dust-driving  or  mire-choked  streets 
with     furniture    from   a    gutted    town-house 
towards  one  standing  in  the  rural  shades  with 
an   empty  stomach!     All  is    dimmed   or   de- 
stroyed— chairs  crushed  on  the  table-land,  and  | 
four-posted    beds  lying  helplessly   with    their  i 
astonished    feet  up   to  heaven — a   sight  that  j 
might  make  the  angels  weep  !  1 

People  have  wondered  why  we,  an  old  bar-  j 
ren  bachelor,  should  live  in  such  a  large  house.  I 
It  is  a  palace;  but  never  was  there  a  greater 
mistake  than  to  seek  the  solution  in  our  pride. 
Silence  can  be  had  but  in  a  large  house.  And 
silence  is  the  chief  condition  of  home  happi-  j 
ness.  We  could  now  hear  a  leaf  fall — a  leaf 
of  the  finest  wire-wove.  Peter  and  Betty,  Polly  | 
and  the  rest,  inhabit  the  second  sunk  story —  [ 
and  it  is  delightful  to  know  that  they  may  be  ■ 
kicking  up  the  most  infernal  disturbance  at 
this  blessed  moment,  and  tearing  out  each 
other's  hair  in  handfuls,  without  the  faintest 
whisper  of  the  uproar  reaching  us  in  our  alti- 
tude above  the  drawing-room  flat.  On  New- 
Year's  Day  morning  there  is  regularly  a  com- 
petition of  bag-pipers  in  the  kitchen,  and  we 
could  fondly  imagine  'tis  an  Eolian  Harp.  In 
his  pantry  Peter  practised  for  years  on  the 
shrill  clarion,  and  for  years  on  the  echoing 
horn;  yet  had  he  thrown  up  both  instruments 
in  despair  of  perfection  ere  we  so  much  as 
knew  that  ho  had  commenced  his  musical  stu- 
dies. In  the  sunk  storj',  immediately  below 
tlicil,  having  been  for  a  season  consumptive, 
wc  kept  a  Jenny  ass  and  her  daughter — and 
though  we  believe  it  was  not  unheard  around 
Moray  and  Ainslie  Places,  and  even  in  Char- 
lotte Square,  we  cannot  charge  our  memory 
with  an  audit  of  their  bray.  In  the  sunk  story 
immediately  below  that  ajja-in,  that  distinguish- 
ed oflicer  on  half  pay.  Captain  Campbell  of 
the  Highlanders — when  on  a  visit  to  us  for  a 
year  or  two — though  we  seldom  saw  him — got 
up  a  Sinn'  still — and  though  a  more  harmless 
creature  could  not  be,  there  he  used  to  sit  for 
hours  together,  with  the  worm  that  never  dies. 
On  one  occasion,  it  having  been  supposed  by 
Peter  that  the  Captain  had  gone  to  the  East 
Neuk  of  Fife,  weeks  elapsed,  we  remember, 
ere  he  was  found  sitting  dead,  just  as  if  he  had 
been  alive,  in  his  usual  attitude  in  his  arm- 
chair, commanding  a  view  of  the  precipice  of 
the  hack  court. 

Just  as  quiet  are  the  Attics.  They,  too,  are 
furnished ;  for  the  feeling  of  there  being  one 
unfurnished  room,  however  small,  in  the  largest 
house,  disturbs  the  entire  state  of  mind  of  such 
an  occupant,  and  when  cherished  and  dwelt 
on,  which  it  must  not  unfrequently  be.  inspires 
a  cold  air  of  desola'ion  throughout  the  doini- 
cile,  till  "thoughts  of  flitting  rise."  There  is 
no  lumber-room.  The  room  containing  Blue- 
Beard's  murdered  wives  might  in  idea  be  en- 
tered without  distraction  by  a  bold  mind. — 
But  oh  !  the  lumber-room,  into  which,  on  an 
early  walk  through  the  house  of  a  friend  on 


whom  we  had  been  sorning,  all  unprepared  did 
we  once  set  our  foot!  From  the  moment,  and 
it  was  but  lc)r  a  moment,  and  about  six  o'clock 
— far  away  in  the  country — that  appalling  vi- 
sion met  our  eyes — till  we  found  ourselves, 
about  another  six  o'clock,  in  Moray  Place,  we 
have  no  memory  of  the  flight  of  time.  Part 
of  the  journey — or  voyage — we  suspect,  was 
performed  in  a  steamer.  The  noise  of  knock- 
ing, and  puffing,  and  splashing  seems  to  be  ;n 
our  inner  ears  ;  but  after  all  it  may  have  been 
a  sail-boat,  possibly  a  yacht ! — In  the  Attics  an 
Aviary  open  to  the  sky.  And  to  us  below,  the 
many  voices,  softened  into  one  sometimes  in 
the  pauses  of  severer  thought,  are  sometimes 
very  affecting,  so  serenely  sweet  it  seems,  as 
the  laverocks'  in  our  youth  at  the  gates  of 
heaven. 

At  our  door  stand  the  Guardian  Genii,  Sleep 
and  Silence.  We  had  an  ear  to  them  in  the 
building  of  our  house,  and  planned  it  after  a 
long  summer  day's  perusal  of  the  Castle  of  In- 
dolence. O  Jemmy  Thomson  !  Jemmy  Thom- 
son ! — O  that  thou  and  we  had  been  rowers  in 
the  same  boat  on  the  silent  river!  Rowers, 
indeed  !  Short  the  spells  and  far  between  that 
we  should  have  taken — the  one  would  not 
have  turned  round  the  other  but  when  the  oar 
chanced  to  drop  out  of  his  listless  hand — and 
I  the  canoe  would  have  been  allowed  to  drift 
with  the  stream,  unobservant  we  of  our  back- 
ward course,  and  wondering  and  then  ceasing 
to  wonder  at  the  slow  receding  beauty  of  the 
hanging  banks  of  grove — the  cloud  mountains, 
immovable  as  those  of  earth,  and  in  spirit  one 
world. 

Ay  !  Great  noise  as  we  have  made  in  the 
world — our  heart's  desire  is  for  silence — its 
delight  is  in  peace.  And  is  it  not  so  with  all 
,  men,  turbulent  as  may  have  been  their  lives, 
who  have  ever  looked  into  their  own  being  1 
The  soul  longs  for  peace  in  itself;  therefore, 
wherever  it  discerns  it,  it  rejoices  in  the  image 
of  which  it  seeks  the  reality.  The  serene  hu- 
man countenance,  the  wide  water  sleeping  in 
the  moonlight,  the  stainless  marble-depth  of 
the  immeasurable  heavens,  reflect  to  it  that 
tranquillity  which  it  imagines  within  itself, 
though  it  never  Ion::  dwelt  there,  restless  as  a 
dove  on  a  dark  tree  that  cannot  be  happy  but  in 
the  sunshine.  It  loves  to  look  on  what  it  loves, 
even  though  it  cannot  possess  it;  and  hence 
its  feeling  on  contemplating  such  calm,  is  not 
of  simple  repose,  but  desire  stirs  in  it,  as  if  it 
would  fain  blend  itself  more  deeply  with  the 
quiet  it  beholds  !  The  sleep  of  a  desert  would 
not  so  afl'ect  it;  it  is  Beauty  that  makes  the  dif- 
I  ference — that  attracts  spirit  to  matter,  while 
spirit  becomes  not  thereby  materialized — but 
matter  spiritualized  ;  and  we  fluctuate  in  the 
air-boat  of  imagination  between  earth  and  hea- 
ven. In  most  and  in  all  great  instances  there 
is  apprehension,  dim  and  faint,  or  more  dis- 
tinct, of  pervasion  of  a  spirit  throughout  that 
which  we  conceive  Beautiful.  Stars,  the  moon, 
the  deep  bright  ether,  waters,  the  rainbow,  a 
pure  lovely  flower — none  of  them  ever  appear 
to  us,  or  are  believed  by  us  to  be  mere  physical 
and  unconscious  dead  aggregates  of  atoms. 
That  is  what  they  are  ;  but  we  could  have  no 
.pleasure  in  them,  if  we  knew  them   as  such. 


OUR  WINTER  QUARTERS. 


281 


There  is  allusion,  then,  of  some  sort,  and  to 
what  does  it  amount'?  We  cannot  well  tell. 
But  if  there  is  really  a  love  in  human  hearts  to 
these  distant  orbs — if  there  is  an  emotion  of 
tenderness  to  the  fair,  opening,  breathing  blos- 
som that  we  would  not  crush  it — "in  gentleness 
of  heart  touch,  for  there  is  a  spirit  in  the 
leaves" — it  must  be  that  we  do  not  see  them  as 
they  are,  but  "create  a  soul  under  the  ribs  of 
death."  We  could  not  be  touched,  or  care  for 
what  has  no  affinity  to  ourselves — we  make 
the  affinity — we  animate,  we  vivify  them,  and 
thenceforward, 

"  Spiritiis  inliis  alit,  totamque  infusa  per  artus, 
Mens  agitat  molein,  et  magiio  se  corpore  miscet." 

Now  you  do  believe  that  we  do  love  Silence 
— and  every  other  thing  worthy  to  be  loved — 
you  and  yours — and  even  that  romp,  your 
shock-headed  Coz,  to  whom  Piiscilla  Tom- 
boy was  an  Imogen. 

All  our  ceilings  are  deadened — we  walk 
ankle-deep  in  carpeting — nobody  is  suffi?red 
to  open  a  door  but  ourselves — and  they  are  so 
constructed,  that  it  is  out  of  their  power  to 
sloni.  Our  winter  furniture  is  all  massy — 
deepening  the  repose.  In  all  ihe  large  rooms 
two  fireplaces — and  fires  are  kept  perpetually 
burning  day  and  night,  in  them  all,  which,  re- 
llected  from  spacious  mirrors,  give  the  man- 
sion quite  the  appearance  of  a  Pandemonium. 
Not  gas  always.  Palm-oil  burns  scentless  as 
moonlight;  and  when  motion,  not  rest,  in  a 
place  is  signified,  we  accompany  ourselves 
with  a  wax  candle,  or  taper  from  time  im- 
memorial green.  Yet  think  not  that  there  is 
a  blaze  of  light.  We  have  seen  the  midnight 
heaven  and  earth  nearly  as  bright,  with  but 
one  moon  and  a  small  scatter  of  stars.  And 
places  of  glimmer — and  places  of  gloom — and 
places  "deaf  to  sound  and  blind  to  light"  there 
are  in  this  our  mansion,  known  but  to  our- 
selves— cells — penitentiaries — where  an  old 
man  may  sit  sighing  and  groaning,  or  stupified 
in  his  misery — or  at  times  almost  happy.  So 
senseless,  and  worse  than  senseless  seems  then 
all  mortal  tribulation  and  anguish  while  the  self- 
communing  soul  is  assured,  by  its  own  pro- 
found responses,  that  "  whatever  is,  is  best." 

And  thus  is  our  domicile  a  domain — a  king- 
dom. We  should  not  care  to  be  confined  to  it 
all  the  rest  of  our  days.  Seldom,  indeed,  do 
we  leave  our  own  door — yet  call  on  us,  and 
ten  to  one  you  hear  us  in  winter  chirping  like 
a  cricket,  or  in  summer  like  a  grasshopper. 
We  have  the  whole  range  of  the  house  to  our- 
selves, and  many  an  Excursion  make  we  on  the 
Crutch.  Ascending  and  descending  the  wide- 
winding  staircases,  each  broad  step  not  above 
two  inches  high,  we  find  ourselves  on  spacious 
landing-places  illumined  by  the  dim  religious 
light  of  stained  windows,  on  which  pilgrims, 
and  palmers,  and  prophets,  single,  or  in  pairs 
or  troops,  are  travelling  on  missions  through 
glens  or  forests  or  by  sea-shores — or  shepherd 
piping  in  the  shade,  or  poet  playing  with  the 
tangles  of  Neasra's  hair.  We  have  discovered 
a  new  principle  on  which,  within  narrow 
bounds,  we  have  constructed  Panoramic  Dio- 
ramas, that  show  splendid  segments  of  the 
great  circle  of  the  world.  We  paint  all  of  them 
ourselves — now  a  Poussin,  now  a  Thomson, 
36 


now  a  Claude,  now  a  Turner,  now  a  Rubens, 
now  a  Danby,  now  a  Salvator,  now  a  Maclise. 

Most  people,  nay,  we  suspect  all  people  but 
ourselves,  make  a  point  of  sleeping  in  the 
same  bed  (that  is  awkwardly  expressed)  all 
life  through  ;  and  out  of  that  bed  many  of  them 
avow  their  inability  to  "  bow  an  eye ;"  such  is 
the  power  of  custom,  of  habit,  of  use  and  wont, 
over  weary  mortals  even  in  the  blessing  of 
sleep.  No  such  slavish  fidelity  do  we  observe 
towards  any  one  bed  of  the  numerous  beds  in 
our  mansion.  No  one  dormitory  is  entitled  to 
plume  itself,  in  the  pride  of  its  heart,  on  being 
peculiarly  Ours  ;  nor  is  any  one  suffisred  to 
sink  into  despondency  from  being  debarred 
the  privilege  of  contributing  to  Our  repose. 
They  are  all  furnished,  if  not  luxuriously, 
comfortably  in  the  extreme ;  in  number,  nine 
— each,  of  course,  with  its  two  dressing-rooms 
— those  on  the  same  story  communicating  with 
one  another,  and  with  the  parlours,  drawing- 
rooms,  and  libraries — "  a  mighty  maze,  but  not 
without  a  plan,"  and  all  harmoniously  com- 
bined by  one  prevailing  and  pervading  spirit 
of  quietude  by  day  and  by  night,  awake  or 
asleep  —  the  chairs  being  couch-like,  the 
couches  bed-like,  the  beds,  whether  tent  or 
canop}%  enveloped  in  a  drapery  of  dreams. 

We  go  to  bed  at  no  stated  hour — but  when 
we  are  tired  of  sitting  up,  then  do  we  lie  down  ; 
at  any  time  of  the  night  or  the  day;  and  we 
rise,  neither  with  the  lark,  nor  the  swallow, 
nor  the  sparrow,  nor  the  cock,  nor  the  owl, 
nor  the  sun,  nor  the  moon,  nor  the  stars,  nor 
Lucifer,  nor  Aurora,  but  with  Christopher 
North.  Yellow,  or  green,  or  blue,  or  crimson, 
or  fawn,  or  orange,  or  pinky  light  salutes  our 
eyes,  as  sleep's  visionary  worlds  recede  and 
relapse  into  airy  nothing,  and  as  we  know  of 
a  certainly  that  these  are  real  web  and  woof 
damask  curtains,  that  flock  palpable  on  sub- 
stantial walls. 

True  wisdom  soon  accommodates  itself  even 
to  involuntary  or  inevitable  change — but  to 
that  which  flows  from  our  own  sweet  will, 
however  sudden  and  strong,  it  instantly  moulds 
itself  in  a  novel  delight,  with  all  its  familiar 
and  domestic  habits.  Why,  we  have  not  been 
in  99,  Moray  Place,  for  a  week — nay,  not  for 
two  days  and  nights — till  you  might  swear  we 
had  been  all  our  life  a  Cit,  we  look  so  like  a 
Native.  The  rustic  air  of  the  Lodge  has  en- 
tirely left  us,  and  all  our  movements  are  me- 
tropolitan. You  see  before  you  a  Gentleman 
of  the  Old  School,  who  knows  that  the  eyes  of 
the  town  are  upon  him  when  he  seeks  the 
open  air,  and  who  preserves,  even  in  the 
privacy  of  the  parlour,  that  dignity  of  dress 
and  demeanour  which,  during  winter,  befits 
his  age,  his  rank,  and  his  character.  Now,  we 
shave  every  morning ;  John,  who  in  his  boyish 
days  served  under  Barbarossa,  lightly  passes 
the  comb  through  our  "  sable  silvered  ;"  and 
then,  in  our  shawl  dressing-gown,  we  descend 
about  ten  to  our  study,  and  sit,  not  unstately, 
beside  the  hissing  urn  at  our  protracted  break- 
fast. In  one  little  month  or  less,  "or  ere  our 
shoes  are  old,"  we  feel  as  if  we  had  belonged 
to  this  house  alone,  and  it  to  us,  from  our  birth. 
The  Lodge  is  seen  to  be  standing  in  its  still- 
ness, far  away  !  Dear  memories  of  the  ten 
2a2 


282 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


sive  past  now  and  then  come  floating  upon  the 
cheerful  present — like  birds  of  fairest  plumage 
floating  far  inland  from  the  main.  But  there 
is  no  idle  longing — no  vain  regret.  This,  we 
say,  is  true  wisdom.  For  each  scene  and  sea- 
son— each  pleasure  and  place — ought  to  be 
trusted  to  itself  in  the  econom}-  of  human  life, 
and  to  be  allowed  its  own  proper  power  over 
our  spirit.  People  in  the  country  are  often  rest- 
less to  return  to  town — and  people  in  town  un- 
happy till  they  rush  away  into  thecountr}- — thus 
cheating  their  entire  existence  out  of  its  natural 
calm  and  satisfaction.  Not  so  we.  We  give 
both  their  due — and  that  due  is  an  almost  un- 
divided delight  in  each  while  we  live  under  its 
reign.  For  Nature,  believe  us,  is  no  jealous 
mistress.  She  is  an  affectionate  wife,  who, 
being  assured  of  his  fidelity,  is  not  afraid  to 
trust  her  husband  out  of  her  sight, 

"When  still  the  town  aflairs  do  call  him  thence," 

and  who  waits  with  cheerful  patience  for  his 
return,  duly  welcomed  with  a  conjugal  shower 
of  smiles  and  kisses. 

But  what  is  this  we  see  before  us  ?  Winter 
— we  declare — and  in  full  fig  wiih  his  pow- 
dered wig !  On  the  mid-day  of  November, 
absolutely  snow !  a  full,  fair,  and  free  fall  of 
indisputable  snow. 

Not  the  slightest  idea  had  we,  the  day  before, 
that  a  single  flake  had  yet  been  fonned  in  the 
atmosphere,  which,  on  chisiiig  of  our  shutters, 
looked  through  the  clear-obscure,  indicative  vC 
a  still  night  and  a  bright  morning.  But  we 
had  not  seen  the  mnon.  She,  we  are  told  by 
an  eyewitness,  early  in  the  evening, . «/«;«/ from 
the  south-east,  "through  the  misty  horizontal 
air,"  with  a  face  of  portentous  magnitude  and 
brazen  hue,  sj-mptomatic,  so  weatherwise  seers 
do  say,  of  the  approach  of  the  Snow-king.  On 
such  occasions  it  requires  all  one's  astronomi- 
cal science  to  distinguish  between  sun  and 
moon  ;  for  then  sister  resembles  brother  in  that 
wan  splendour,  and  you  wonder  for  a  moment, 
as  the  large  beamless  orb  (how  unlike  Dian's 
silver  bow!)  is  in  ascension,  what  can  have 
brought  the  lord  of  day,  at  this  untimeous 
nour,  from  his  sea-couch  behind  the  moun- 
tains of  the  west.  Yet  during  the  night-calm 
we  suspected  snow — for  the  hush  of  the  hea- 
vens had  that  downy  feel  to  our  half-sleeping 
fancy,  that  belongs  to  the  eider-pillow  in  which 
disappears  our  aged,  honoured,  and  un-night- 
capcd  head.  Looking  out  by  peep  of  day — 
rather  a  ghostlike  appearance  in  our  long 
night-shirt,  which  trails  a  regal  train — we  be- 
held the  fair  feathers  dimly  descending  through 
the  glimmer,  while  momently  the  world  kept 
whitening  and  whitening,  till  we  knew  not  our 
home-returning  white  cat  on  what  was  yester- 
day the  back-gjYfn,  but  by  the  sable  tail  that 
singularly  shoots  from  the  rump  of  that  phe- 
nomenon. We  were  delighted.  Into  the  cold 
plungc-balh  we  played  plop  like  a  salmon— 
and  came  out  as  red  as  a  cut  of  that  incompar- 
able fish.  One  ply  of  leather — one  of  flannel 
— and  one  of  the  linen  fine;  and  then  the  suit 
of  pepper  and  salt  over  all ;  and  you  behold 
us  welcoming,  hailing,  and  blessing  the  return 
of  daj'.  Frost,  too,  felt,  at  the  finger  and  toe 
lips — and  in  unequivocal  true-blue  at  the  point, 


Pensive  Public,  of  thy  Grecian  or  Roman  nose. 
Furs,  at  once,  are  all  the  rage;  the  month  of 
muffs  has  come;  and  round  the  neck  of  Eve, 
and  every  one  of  all  her  daughters,  is  seen 
harmlessly  coiling  a  boa-constrictor.  On  their 
lovely  cheeks  the  Christmas  roses  are  already 
in  full  blov/,  and  the  heart  of  Christopher 
North  sings  aloud  for  joy.  Furred,  muffed, 
and  boa'd,  Mrs.  Gentle  adventures  abroad  in 
the  blast;  and,  shouldering  his  Crutch,  the 
rough,  ready,  and  ruddy  old  man  shows  how 
widows  are  won,  whispers  in  that  delicate  ear 
of  the  publication  of  bans,  and  points  his  gouty 
toe  towards  the  hj-meneaJ  altar.  In  the  bracing 
air,  his  frame  is  strung  like  Paganini's  fiddle, 
and  he  is  felt  to  be  irresistible  in  the  piggicato. 
"Lord  of  his  presence,  and  small  land  beside," 
what  cares  he  even  for  a  knight  of  the  Guel- 
phic  order?  On  his  breast  shines  a  star — may 
it  never  prove  a  cross — beyond  bestowal  by 
king  or  kaisar;  nor  is  Maga's  self  jealous  or 
envious  of  these  wedded  loves.  And  who 
knows  but  that  ere  another  November  snow 
sheets  the  Shotts,  a  curious  little  Kitt,  with  the 
word  North  distinctly  traceable  in  blue  letters 
on  the  whites  of  his  eyes,  may  not  be  playing 
antics  on  his  mother's  knee,  and  with  the  true 
Tory  face  in  miniature,  smiling  upon  the 
guardian  of  the  merry  fellow's  own  and  his 
country's  constitution  1 

What  kind  of  a  Winter — we  wonder — are 
we  to  have  in  the  way  of  wind  and  weather  1 
We  trust  it  will  be  severe.  As  summer  set  in 
with  his  usual  severity.  Winter  must  not  be 
behindhand  with  him  ;  but  after  an  occasional 
week's  rain  of  a  commendably  boisterous  cha- 
racter, must  come  out  in  full  fig  of  frost.  He 
has  two  suits  which  we  greatly  admire,  com- 
bining the  splendour  of  a  court-dress  with  the 
strength  of  a  work-day  garb — we  mean  his 
garmcntsi  of  black  and  his  garments  of  white 
frost.  He  looks  best  in  the  former,  we  think, 
on  to  about  Christmas — and  the  latter  become 
the  old  gentleman  well  from  that  festival  sea- 
son, on  to  about  the  day  sacred  to  a  class  of 
per'^ons  who  will  never  read  our  Recreations. 

Of  all  the  months  of  the  year,  November — 
in  our  climate — whether  in  town  or  country, 
bears  the  worst  character.  He  is  almost  uni- 
versally thought  to  be  a  sour,  sulky,  sullen, 
savage,  dim,  dull,  dark,  disconsolate,  yet  de- 
signing month — in  fewer  words,  a  month 
scarcely  fit  to  live.  Abhorring  all  personalities, 
we  repent  having  sometimes  given  into  this 
national  abuse  of  November.  We  know  him 
\vell — and  though  we  admit  at  once  that  he  is 
no  beauty,  and  that  his  manners  are  at  the  best 
bluff",  at  the  worst  repulsive,  yet  on  those  who 
choose  to  cultivate  his  acquaintance,  his  cha- 
racter continues  so  to  mellow  and  ameliorate 
itself,  that  they  come  at  last,  if  not  to  love,  to 
like  him,  and  even  to  prefer  his  company  "in 
the  season  of  the  year,"  to  that  of  other  more 
brilliant  visiters.  So  true  is  it  with  months 
and  men,  that  it  requires  only  to  know  the 
most  unpleasant  of  them,  and  to  see  them  dur- 
ing a  favourable  phasis,  in  order  to  regard 
them  with  that  Christian  complacency  which 
a  good  heart  sheds  over  all  its  habits.  'Tis 
unlucky  for  November — poor  fellow  ! — that  he 
follows  October.     October  is  a  month  so  much 


OUR  WINTER  QUARTERS. 


283 


admired  by  the  world,  that  we  often  wonder  he 
has  not  been  spoiled.  "What  a  glorious  Oc- 
tober!" "Why,  you  will  surely  not  leave  us 
till  October  comes!"  "October  is  the  month 
of  all  months — and,  till  you  see  him,  you  have 
not  seen  the  Lakes."  We  acknowledge  his 
claims.  He  is  often  truly  delightful ;  but,  like 
other  brilliant  persons,  thinks  himself  not  only 
privileged  to  be  at  times  extremely  dull,  but  his 
intensest  stupidity  is  panegyrized  as  wit  of  the 
first  water — while  his  not  unfrequent  rudeness, 
of  which  many  a  common  month  would  be 
ashamed,  passes  for  the  ease  of  high-birth,  or 
the  eccentricity  of  genius.  A  vevy  different 
feeling  indeed  exists  towards  unfortunate  No- 
vember. The  moment  he  shows  his  face,  all 
other  faces  are  glum.  We  defy  month  or  man, 
under  such  a  trial,  to  make  himself  even  tol- 
erably agreeable.  He  feels  that  he  is  no  fa- 
vourite, and  that  a  most  sinister  misinterpre- 
tation will  be  put  on  all  his  motions,  manners, 
thoughts,  words,  and  deeds.  A  man  or  a  month 
so  circumstanced  is  much  to  be  pitied.  Think, 
look,  speak,  act  as  he  will — yea,  even  more 
like  an  angel  than  a  man  or  a  month — every 
eyebrow  arches — every  nostril  distends — every 
)ip  curls  towards  him  in  contempt,  while  blow 
over  the  ice  that  enchains  all  his  feelings  and 
faculties,  heav\v-chill  whisperings  of  "  who  is 
that  disagreeable  fellow  1"  In  such  a  frozen 
atmosphere  eloquence  would  be  congealed  on 
the  lips  of  an  Ulysses — Poetry  prosified  on 
those  of  an  Apollo. 

Edinburgh,  during  the  dead  of  Summer,  is  a 
far  more  solitary  place  than  Glenetive,  Glen- 
evis,  or  Glenco.  There  is  not,  however,  so 
much  danger  of  being  lost  in  it  as  in  the  Moor 
of  Rannoch — for  streets  and  squares,  though 
then  utterly  tenantless,  are  useful  as  land- 
marks to  the  pilgrim  passing  through  what 
seems  to  be 

"A  still  forsaken  Cily  of  the  Dead  :" 

But,  like  a  frost-bound  river,  suddenly  dissolved 
by  a  strong  thaw,  and  coming  down  in  spate 
from  the  mountains  to  the  low  lands,  about 
the  beginning  of  November  Life  annuallv  re- 
overflows  our  metropolis,  with  a  noise  like 
"  the  rushing  of  many  chariots."  The  streets, 
that  for  months  had  been  like  the  stony  chan- 
nels of  dried-up  streams — only  not  quite  so 
well  paved — are  again  all  a  murmur,  and  peo- 
ple addicted  to  the  study  of  political  economy, 
begin  to  hold 

"  Each  strange  tale  devoutly  true  " 
in  the  Malthusian  theory  of  population.  What 
swarms  keep  hovering  round  the  great  North- 
ern Hive !  Add  eke  after  eke  to  the  skep, 
and  still  seems  it  too  small  to  contain  all  the 
insects.  Edinburgh  is  almost  as  large  as  Lon- 
don. Nay,  don't  stare  !  We  speak  compara- 
tively ;  and,  as  England  is  somewhere  about 
six  times  more  populous  than  Scotland,  you 
may,  by  brushing  up  your  arithmetic,  and  ap- 
plying to  the  Census,  discover  that  we  are  not 
so  far  wrong  in  our  apparent  paradox. 

Were  November  in  himself  a  far  more 
wearifu'  month  than  he  is,  Edinburgh  would 
nevertheless  be  gladsome  in  the  midst  of  all 
his  gloom,  even  as  a  wood  in  May  with  the 
Gathering  of  the  Clans.    The  country  flows 


into  the  town— all  its  life  seems  to  do  so — and 
to  leave  nothing  behind  but  the  bare  trees  and 
hedges.  Equipages  again  go  glittering  along 
all  the  streets,  squares,  circuses,  and  crescents  ; 
and  one  might  think  that  the  entire  "nation  of 
ladies  and  gentlemen  " — for  King  George  the 
Fourth,  M-e  presume,  meant  to  include  the  sex, 
in  his  compliment — were  moving  through  their 
metropolis.  Amusement  and  business  walk 
hand-in-hand — you  hardly  know,  from  their 
cheerful  countenances,  which  is  which;  for 
the  Scots,  though  a  high-cheeked,  are  not  an 
ill-favoured  folk  in  their  features — and  though 
their  mouths  are  somewhat  of  the  widest,  their 
teeth  are  white  as  well  as  sharp,  and  on  the 
opening  of  their  ruddy  lips,  their  ivory-cases 
are  still  further  brightened  by  hearty  smiles. 
'Twould  be  false  to  say  that  their  figures  are 
distinguished  Liy  an  air  of  fashion — for  we  have 
no  court,  and  our  nobles  are  almost  all  ab- 
sentees. But  though,  in  one  sense,  the  men  are 
ugly  customers,  as  they  will  find 

"  Who  chance  to  tread  upon  their  freeborn  toe," 
yet,  literally,  they  are  a  comely  crew,  and  if 
formed   into    battalions    in    marching    order, 
would  make  the  National  Guard  in  Paris  look 
like 

"  That  small  infantry 
Warr'd  on  by  cranes." 

Our  females  have  figures  that  can  thaw  any 
frost;  and  'tis  universally  allowed  that  they 
walk  well,  though  their  style  of  pedestrianism 
does  not  so  readily  recall  to  the  imagination 
Virgil's  picture  of  Camilla  flying  along  the 
heads  of  corn  without  touching  their  ears,  as 
the  images  of  paviers  with  post-looking  inallets 
driving  down  dislodged  stones  into  the  streets. 
Intermingling  with  the  lighter  and  more  elastic 
footsteps  of  your  Southron  dames,  the  on-goings 
of  our  native  virgins  produce  a  pleasant  varie- 
ty of  motion  in  the  forenoon  melee  that  along 
the  Street  of  Princes  now  goes  nodding  in  the 
sun-glint. 

"  Amid  the  general  dance  and  minstrelsy  " 

who  would  wear  a  long  face,  unless  it  were  in 
sympathy  with  his  length  of  ears  1  A  din  of 
multitudinous  joy  hums  in  the  air;  you  can- 
not see  the  city  for  the  houses,  its  inhabitants 
for  the  people ;  and,  as  for  finding  one  par- 
ticular acquaintance  in  the  crowd,  why,  to  use 
an  elegant  simile,  you  might  as  well  go  search 
for  a  needle  in  a  bottle  of  hay. 

But  hark !  a  hollow  sound,  distant,  and  as 
yet  referred  to  no  distinct  place — then  a  faint 
mixture  of  a  clear  chime  that  is  almost  music 
— now  a  tune — and  at  last,  rousing  the  massy 
multitude  to  enthusiasm,  a  military  march, 
swelling  various,  profound,  and  high,  with 
drum,  trombone,  serpent,  trump,  clarionet,  fife, 
flute,  and  cymbal,  bringing  slowly  on  (is  it  the 
measured  tramp  of  the  feet  of  men,  or  the  con- 
fused trampling  of  horses  1)  banners  floating 
over  the  procession,  above  the  glitter  of  steel, 
and  the  golden  glow  of  helmets.  'Tis  a  regi- 
ment of  cavalry — hurra!  the  Carbineers! 
What  an  Advanced  Guard  ! 

"There  England  sends  her  men,  of  men  the  chief," 
Still,  Staid,  bold,  bronzed  faces,  with  keen  eyei>, 
looking  straight  forward  from  between  sabres  : 
while  beneath  the  equable  but  haughty  motiou 


284 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


of  their  steeds,  almost  disciplined  as  iheir 
riders,  with  long  black  horse-hair  Hewing 
in  martial  majest}',  nod  their  high  Roman 
casques.  The  sweet  storm  of  music  has  been 
passing  by  while  we  were  gazing,  and  is  now 
Siomewhat  deadened  by  the  retiring  distance 
and  by  tliat  mass  of  buildings,  (how  the  win- 
dows are  alive,  and  agaze  with  faces!)  while 
troop  after  troop  comes  on,  still  moving,  it  is 
felt  by  all,  to  tlie  motion  of  the  warlike  tune, 
though  now  across  the  Waterloo  Bridge  sound- 
ing like  an  echo,  till  the  glorious  war-pageant 
is  all  gone  by,  and  the  dull  day  is  deadened 
down  again  into  the  stillness  and  silence  of  an 
ignoble  peace. 

"  Now  all  tlie  youth  of  Scotland  are  on  fire  ;" 
All  her  cities  and  towns  are  rejoicing  in  the 
welcome  Winter;  and  mind,  invigorated  by 
holidays,  is  now  at  work,  like  a  giant  refresh- 
ed, in  all  professions.  The  busy  bar  growls, 
grumphs,  squeaks,  like  an  old  sow  with  a  litter 
of  pigs  pretending  to  be  quarrelling  about 
straws.  Enter  the  Outer  or  the  Inner  House, 
and  you  hear  eloquence  that  would  have  put 
Cicero  to  the  blush,  and  reduced  Demosthenes 
to  his  original  stutter.  The  wigs  of  the  Judges 
seem  to  have  been  growing  during  the  long 
vacation,  and  to  have  expanded  into  an  ampler 
wisdom.  Seldom  have  we  seen  a  more  solemn 
set  of  men.  Every  one  looks  more  f^nfh  than 
another,  and  those  three  in  the  centre  seem  to 
us  the  embodied  spirits  of  Law,  Equity,  and 
Justice.  What  can  be  the  meaning  of  all  this 
endless  litigation?  On  what  immutable  prin- 
ciples in  human  nature  dejiends  the  prosperity 
of  the  Fee-fund  T  Life  is  strife.  Inestimable 
the  blessing  of  the  great  institution  of  Property  ! 
For  without  it,  how  could  people  go  together 
by  the  ears,  as  if  they  would  tear  one  another 
to  pieces!  All  the  strong,  we  must  not  call 
them  bad  passions,  denied  their  natural  ele- 
ment, would  find  out  some  channels  to  run  in, 
far  more  destructive  to  the  commonweal  than 
lawsuits,  and  the  people  would  be  reduced  to 
the  lowest  ebb  of  misery,  and  raised  to  the 
highest  How  of  crime.  Our  Parliament  House 
here  is  a  vast  safety-valve  for  the  escape  of  the 
foul  steam  that  would  otherwise  explode  and 
shatter  the  engine  of  the  state,  blowing  the 
body  and  members  of  society  to  smash.  As  it 
is,  how  the  engine  works!  There  it  goes! 
like  Erickson's  Novelty  or  Stevenson's  Rocket 
alojig  a  railroad;  and  though  an  accident  may 
occur  now  and  then,  such  as  an  occasional 
passenger  chucl(ed  by  some  uncalculated  col- 
lision into  the  distant  horizon,  to  be  picked  up 
whole,  or  in  fragments,  by  the  hoers  in  some 
turnip-field  in  the  adjacent  county,  yet  few  or 
none  are  likely  to  be  fatal  on  a  great  scale ; 
and  on  goes  the  Novelty  or  Rocket,  like  a 
thought,  with  many  weighty  considerations 
after  it,  in  the  shape  of  wagons  of  Christians 
or  cottons,  while  Manufactures  and  Commerce 
exult  in  the  cause  of  Liberty  and  Locomotion 
all  over  the  world. 

But  to  us  utter  idlcsse  is  perfect  bliss.  And 
*hy !  Because,  like  a  lull  at  sea,  or  loun  on 
land,  it  is  felt  to  descend  from  Heaven  on 
man's  toilsome  lot.  The  lull  and  the  loun,  what 
are  they  when  most  profound,  but  the  transient 
cassation  of  the  restlessness  of  winds  and  wa- 


ters— a  change  wrou^t  for  an  hour  of  peace 
in  the  heart  of  the  hurricane  !  Therefore  the 
sailor  enjoys  it  on  the  green  wave — the  shep- 
herd on  the  green  sward;  while  the  memorj 
of  mists  and  storms  deepens  the  enchantment. 
Even  so,  Idlesse  can  be  enjoj'ed  but  by  those 
who  are  permitted  to  indulge  it,  while  enduring 
the  labours  of  an  active  or  a  contemplative  ' 
life.  To  use  another,  and  a  still  livelier  image 
— see  the  pedlar  toiling  along  the  dusty  road, 
with  an  enormous  pack  on  his  excursion  ;  and 
when  off  his  aching  shoulders  slowly  falls  back 
on  the  bank  the  loosened  load,  in  blessed  re- 
lief think  ye  not  that  he  enjoys,  like  a  very 
poet,  the  beauty  of  the  butterflies  that,  waver- 
ing through  the  air,  settle  down  on  the  wild- 
flowers  around  him  that  embroider  the  way- 
side !  Yet  our  pedlar  is  not  so  much  either 
of  an  eutymologist  or  a  botanist  as  not  to  take 
out  his  scrip,  and  eat  his  bread  and  cheese 
wifh  a  mute  prayer  and  a  munching  appetite — 
not  idle,  it  must  be  confess'd,  in  that  sense — 
but  in  every  other  idle  evan  as  the  shadow  of 
the  sycamore,  beneath  which,  with  his  eyes 
half-open — for  by  hypothesis  he  is  a  Scots- 
man— he  finally  sinks  into  a  wakeful,  but  quiet 
half-sleep.  "Hallo!  why  are  you  sleeping 
there,  you  iille  fellow  1"  bawls  some  beadle,  or 
some  overseer,  or  some  magistrate,  or  perhaps 
merely  one  of  those  private  persons  who,  out 
of  season  and  in  season,  are  constantly  send- 
ing the  sluggard  to  the  ant  to  learn  wisdom— 
though  the  ant,  Heaven  bless  her!  at  proper 
limes  sleeps  as  sound  as  a  sicknurse. 

We  are  now  the  idlest,  because  once  were 
we  the  most  industrious  of  men.  Up  to  the 
time  that  we  engaged  to  take  an  occasional 
glance  over  the  self-growing  sheets  of  The 
Pcriodit:aI,  we  were  tied  to  one  of  the  oars  that 
move  along  the  great  vessel  of  life  ;  and  we 
believe  that  it  was  allowed  by  all  the  best 
watermen,  that 

"  We  feaiher'd  our  oars  with  skill  and  dexterity." 

But  ever  since  we  became  an  Editor,  our  re- 
pose, bodily  and  mental,  has  been  like  that  of  a 
Hindoo  god.  Often  do  we  sit  whole  winter 
nights,  leaning  back  on  our  chair,  more  like 
the  image  of  a  man  than  a  man  himself,  with 
shut  eyes,  that  keep  seeing  in  succession  all 
the  things  that  ever  happened  to  us,  and  all 
the  persons  that  we  ever  loved,  hated,  or  de- 
spised, embraced,  beat,  or  insulted,  since  we 
were  a  little  boy.  They  too  have  all  an  image- 
like appearance,  and  'tis  wondrous  strange 
how  silent  they  all  are,  actors  and  actresses  on 
the  stage  of  that  revived  drama,  which  some- 
times seems  to  be  a  genteel  comedy,  and  some- 
times a  broad  farce,  and  then  to  undergo  dread- 
ful transfiguration  into  a  tragedy  deep  as  death. 
We  presume  that  the  Public  read  in  her 
own  papers — we  cannot  but  be  hurt  that  no  ac- 
count of  it  has  appeared  in  the  Court  Journal 
— that  f>n  Thursday  the  12ih  current.  No.  99, 
Moray  Place,  was  illuminated  by  our  annual 
Soiree.  Conversazzione,  Rout,  Ball,  and  Supper. 
A  Ball !  yes — for  Christopher  North,  acting  in 
the  spirit  of  his  favourite  James  Thomson, 

"  No  purpose  g.iy, 
Amiisempnt,  danrp,  or  sone  he  Rternly  scorns 
For  happiness  and  true  ptiilosopliy 
Arc  of  the  social,  still,  and  smiling  kind." 


OUR  WINTER  QUARTERS. 


285 


All  the  rooms  in  the  house  were  thrown  open, 
except  the  cellars  and  the  Sanctum.  To  the 
people  congregated  outside,  the  building,  we 
have  been  assured,  had  all  the  brilliancy  of  the 
Bude  Light.  It  was  like  a  palace  of  light,  of 
which  the  framework  or  skeleton  was  of  white 
unveined  marble.  So  strong  was  the  reflec- 
tion on  the  nocturnal  heavens,  that  a  rumour 
ran  through  the  City  that  there  was  a  great  fire 
in  Moray  Place,  nor  did  it  subside  till  after  the 
arrival  and  departure  of  several  engines.  The 
alarm  of  some  huge  conflagration  prevailed 
during  most  part  of  the  night  all  over  the  king- 
dom of  Fife  ;  while  in  the  Lothians,  our  illumi- 
nation was  much  admired  as  an  uncommonly 
fine  specimen  of  the  Aurora  Borealis. 

"  From  the  arch'd  roof, 
Pendent  by  subtle  iiia^ic,  many  a  row 
Of  starry  lamps  and  blazing  cressets,  fed 
With  naphtha  and  asphaltus,  yielded  light 
As  from  a  sky.     The  hasty  nmltitude 
Admiring  enter'd." 

We  need  not  say  who  received  the  company, 
and  with  what  grace  she  did  so,  standing  at 
the  first  landing-place  of  the  great  staircase  in 
sable  stole ;  for  the  widow's  weeds  have  not 
yet  been  dofled  for  the  robes  of  safl^ron — with  a 
Queen-Mary  cap  pointed  in  the  front  of  her  se- 
rene and  ample  forehead,  and,  to  please  us,  a 
few  pearls  sprinkled  among  her  hair,  still  an 
unfaded  auburn,  and  on  her  bosom  one  star- 
bright  diamond.  Had  the  old  General  himself 
come  to  life  again,  and  beheld  her  then  and 
there,  he  could  not  have  been  ofl'ended  with 
such  simple  ornaments.  The  weeds  he  would 
have  felt  due  to  him,  and  all  that  his  memory 
was  fairly  entitled  to ;  but  the  flowers — to  speak 
figuratively — he  would  have  cheerfully  ac- 
knowledged jvere  due  to  us,  and  that  they  well 
became  both  face  and  figure  of  his  lovely  re- 
lict. As  she  moved  from  one  room  to  another, 
showering  anmnd  her  serene  smiles,  we  felt 
the  dignity  of  those  Virgilian  words, 

"  Incedit  Regina.*" 

Surely  there  is  something  very  poetical  in 
the  gradual  flowing  in  of  the  tide  of  grace,  ele- 
gance and  beauty,  over  the  floors  of  a  suit  of 
regal-looking  rooms,  splendidly  illuminated. 
Each  party  as  it  comes  on  has  its  own  pecu- 
liar picturesqueness,  and  aff"ects  the  heart  or 
imagination  by  some  novel  charm,  gently 
gliding  onward  a  little  while  by  itself,  as  if  not 
unconscious  of  its  own  attractions,  nor  un- 
proud  of  the  gaze  of  perhaps  critical  adiTjira- 
tion  that  attends  its  progressive  movement. 
We  confess  ourseltes  partial  to  plumes  of 
feathers  above  the  radiant  braidings  of  the 
silken  tresses  on  the  heads  of  virgins  and  ma- 
trons— provided  they  be  not  "dumpy  women" 
— tall,  white,  blue,  and  pink  plumes,  silent  in 
their  wavings  as  gossamer,  and  as  finely  deli- 
cate, stirred  up  by  your  very  breath  as  you 
bend  down  to  salute  their  cheeks — not  with 
kisses — for  they  would  be  out  of  order  both  of 
time  and  place — but  with  words  almost  as  ten- 
der as  kisses,  and  awakening  almost  as  tender 
a  return — a  few  sweet  syllables  breathed  in  a 
silver  voice,  with  blushing  cheeks,  and  down- 
cast eyes  that,  when  again  uplifted,  are  seen 
lo  be  from  heaven. 

A  long  hour  ago,  and  all  the  mansion  was 


empty  and  motionless — with  us  two  alone  sit- 
ting by  each  other's  side  aff'ectionately  and  re- 
spectfully on  a  sofa.  Now  it  is  filled  with  life, 
and  heard  you  ever  such  a  happy  murmur'? 
Yet  no  one  in  particular  looks  as  if  he  or  she 
were  speaking  much  above  breath,  so  gentle  is 
true  refinement,  like  a  delightful  fragrance 

"  From  the  calm  ma^nners  quietly  exhaled." 

Oh !  the  atrocious  wickedness  of  a  great, 
big,  hearty,  huge,  hulking,  horse-laugh  in  an 
assemblage  of  ladies  and  gentlemen,  gathered 
gracefully  together  to  enjoy  the  courtesies,  the 
amenities,  the  urbanities,  and  the  humanities 
of  cultivated  Christian  life!  The  pagan  who 
perpetrates  it  should  be  burnt  alive — not  at  a 
slow  fire — though  that  would  be  but  justice — 
but  at  a  quick  one,  that  all  remnants  of  him 
and  his  enormity  may  be  instantly  extinguish- 
ed. Lord  Chesterfield  has  been  loudly  laughed 
at  with  leathern  lungs  for  his  anathema  against 
laughter.  But  though  often  wrong,  there  his 
Lordship  was  right,  and  for  that  one  single 
rule  of  manners  he  deserves  a  monument,  as 
having  been  one  of  the  benefactors  of  his  spe- 
cies. Let  smiles  mantle — and  that  sweet,  soft, 
low  sound  be  heard,  the  susuntis.  Let  there  be 
a  many-voiced  quiet  music,  like  thai  of  the 
summer  moonlight  sea  when  the  stars  are  in 
its  breast.  But  laughter — loud  peals  of  laugh- 
ter— are  like  breakers — blind  breakers  on  a 
blind  coast,  where  no  verdure  grows  except 
that  of  tangle,  and  whatever  is  made  into  thai 
vulgaristof  all  commodities,  kelp. 

'Tis  not  a  literary  conversazzione,  mind  ye, 
gentle  reader ;  for  we  leave  that  to  S.  T.  Cole- 
ridge, the  Monarch  of  the  Monologue.  But  all 
speak — talk — whisper — or  smile,  of  all  the 
speakable,  talkable,  whisperable,  and  smilea- 
ble  little  interesting  affairs,  incidents,  and  oc- 
currences, real  or  fabulous,  of  public,  private, 
demi-public,  or  demi-semi-private  life.  Topics 
are  as  plentiful  as  snow-flakes,  and  melt  away 
as  fast  in  the  stream  of  social  pleasure, 

"A  moment  white,  then  gone  for  ever!" 

Not  a  little  scandal — much  gossip,  we  dare 
say;  but  as  for  scandal,  it  is  the  vulgarest  er- 
ror in  the  world  to  think  that  it  either  means, 
or  does,  any  harm  to  any  mortal.  It  does  in- 
finite good.  It  ventilates  the  atmosphere,  and 
prevents  the  "golden-fretted  vault"  from  be- 
coming "  a  foul  congregation  of  vapours."  As 
for  gossip,  what  other  vindication  does  it  need, 
than  an  order  for  you  to  look  at  a  soiree  of 
swallows  in  September  on  a  slate-roof,  the 
most  innocent  and  white-breasted  creatures 
that  pay 

"  Their  annual  visits  round  the  globe, 
Companions  of  the  sun," 

but  such  gossipers  that  the  whole  air  is 
a-twitter  with  their  talk  about  their  neighbours' 
nests — when — whew  !  off  and  away  they  go, 
winnowing  their  way  westwards,  through  the 
setting  sunlight,  and  all  in  perfect  amity  with 
themselves  and  their  kind,  while 

"  The  world  is  all  before  them  where  to  choose, 
And  Providence  their  guide." 

And,  madam,  you  do  not  matronize— and,  sir, 
you  do  not  patronize — ivallzing?    'Tis  very  O 


286 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


fie-fieish,  you  think — and  in  danger  of  becom- 
ing very,  very  faux-pa-pa-ish ! 

"  Oh  !  the  great  goodness  of  the  knights  of  old," 
whose  mind-motto  was  still — 

"  Honi  soil  qui  mal  y  pense .'" 

Judging  by  ourselves,  'tis  a  wicked  world  we 
unwillingly  confess;  but  be  not  terrified  at 
trifles,  we  beseech  you,  and  be  not  gross  in 
your  censure  of  innocent  and  delicate  delights. 
Byron's  exquisitively  sensitive  modesty  was 
shocked  by  the  sight  of  waltzing,  which  he 
would  not  have  suffered  the  Guiccioli,  while 
she  was  in  his  keeping,  to  have  indulged  in 
even  with  her  own  husband.  Thus  it  is  that 
sinners  see  sin  only  where  it  is  not — and  shut 
their  eyes  to  it  when  it  comes  upon  them  open- 
armed,  bare-bosomed,  and  brazen-faced,  and 
clutches  them  in  a  grasp  more  like  the  hug  of 
a  bear  than  the  embrace  of  a  woman.  Away 
with  such  mawkish  modesty  and  mouthing 
morality — for  'lis  the  slang  of  the  hypocrite. 
Waltzing  does  our  old  eyes  good  to  look  on  it, 
when  the  whole  Circling  Flight  goes  gracefully 
and  airily  on  its  orbit,  and  we  think  we  see  the 
realization  of  that  picture  (we  are  sad  misquo- 
ters)  when  the  Hours — 

"Knit  by  tho  Grares  and  the  Loves  in  dance, 
Lead  on  the  eternal  spring! 

But  the  Circling  Flight  breaks  into  airy 
fragments,  the  Instrumental  Band  is  hushed, 
and  so  is  the  whole  central  Drawing-room  ;  for, 
blushingly  obedient  to  the  old  man's  beck,  Tiik 
Stau  of  Eve — so  call  we  her  who  is  our  heari's- 
case  and  heart's-delight — the  granddaughter  of 
one  whoiTi  hopelessly  we  loved  in  youth,  yet  with 
no  unreturned  passion — but 

"  Tlie  course  of  true  love  never  yet  ran  smooth" — 

comes  glidingly  to  our  side,  and  having  heard 
our  wish  breathed  whisperingly  into  her  ear — 
a  rare  feature  when  small,  thin,  and  delicate 
as  a  leaf — ^just  as  glidingly  she  goes,  in  stature 
that  is  almost  slatelincss,  towards  her  Harp, 
and  assuming  at  once  a  posture  that  would 
have  charmed  Canova,  after  a  few  prelusive 
touches  that  betray  the  hand  of  a  mistress  in 
the  divine  art,  to  the  enchantment  of  the  white 
motions  of  those  graceful  arms  and  fingers  fine, 
awakes  a  spirit  in  the  strings  accordant  to  the 
spirit  in  that  voice  worthy  to  have  blended 
with  St.  Cecilia's  in  her  hymning  orisons.    A 


Hebrew  Melody !     And  now  your  heart  feels 
the  utter  mournfulness  of  these  words, 
"  By  Babel's  streams  we  sat  and  wept !" 

How  sudden,  yet  how  unviolent,  the  transitions 
among  all  our  feelings  !  Under  no  other  power 
so  swift  and  so  soft  as  that  of  Music.  The  soul 
that  sincerely  loves  Music,  offers  at  no  time  the 
slightest  resistance  to  her  sway,  but  yields  it- 
self up  entire  to  all  its  moods  and  measures, 
led  captive  by  each  successive  strain  through 
the  whole  mysterious  world  of  modulated  air. 
Nt)t  a  smile  over  all  that  hush.  Entranced  in 
listening,  they  are  all  still  as  images.  A  sigh 
— almost  a  sob — is  heard,  and  there  is  shedding 
of  tears.  The  sweet  singer's  self  seems  as  if 
she  felt  all  alone  at  some  solitary  shrine — 
"  Her  face,  oh  1  call  it  fair,  not  pale  :" 

Yet  pale  now  it  is,  as  if  her  heart  almost  died 
within  her  at  the  pathos  of  her  own  beautiful 
lament  in  a  foreign  land,  and  lovelier  in  her 
captivity  never  was  the  fairest  of  the  daugh- 
ters of  Zion  ! 

How  it  howls  !  That  was  a  very  avalanche. 
The  snow-winds  preach  charity  to  all  who  have 
roofs  over-head — towards  the  houseless  and 
them  who  huddle  round  hearths  where  the  fire 
is  dying  or  dead.  Those  blankets  must  have 
been  a  Godsend  indeed  to  not  a  few  families, 
and  your  plan  is  preferable  to  a  Fancy-Fair. 
Yet  that  is  good  too — nor  do  we  find  fault  with 
them  who  dance  for  the  Destitute.  We  sanc- 
tion amusements  that  give  relief  to  misery — 
and  the  wealthy  may  waltz  unblamed  for  be- 
hoof of  the  poor. 

Again  what  a  howling  in  the  chimney  !  What 
a  blattering  on  the  windows,  and  what  a  can- 
nonading on  the  battlements!  What  can  the 
Night  be  about?  and  what  has  put  old  Nox 
into  such  a  most  outrageous  passion  1  He  has 
driven  our  Winter  Rhapsody  clean  out  of  our 
noddle — and  to-morrow  we  must  be  sending 
for  the  slater,  the- plumber,  and  the  glazier.  To 
go  to  bed  in  such  a  hurly-burly,  would  be  to 
make  an  Ultra-Toryish  acknowledgment,  not 
only  of  the  divine  right,  but  of  the  divine 
power,  of  King  Morpheus.  But  an  Ultra-Tory 
we  are  not — though  Ultra-Trimmers  try  to  im- 
pose upon  themselves  that  fiction  among  a 
thousand  others ;  so  we  shall  smoke  a  cigar, 
and  let  sleep  go  to  the  dogs,  the  deuse,  the 
devil,  and  the  Chartists. 


STROLL  TO  GRASSMERE. 


287 


STROLL  TO  GEASSMEUE. 


FIRST  SAUNTER. 

CoMPAXio::?  of  the  Crutch  !  hast  thou  been  a 
loving  observer  of  the  weather  of  our  island- 
clime  ]  We  do  not  mean  to  ask  if  you  have 
from  youth  been  in  the  daily  practice  of  rising 
from  your  study-chair  at  regular  intervals, 
and  ascertaining  the  precise  point  of  Mercury's 
elevation  on  the  barometrical  scale.  The 
idea  of  trusting,  throughout  all  the  fluctuations 
of  the  changeful  and  capricious  atmosphere  in 

»  which  we  live,  to  quicksilver,  is  indeed  pre- 
posterous; and  we  have  long  noticed  that 
meteorologists  make  an  early  figure  in  our 
obituaries.  Seeing  the  head  of  the  god  above 
I  the  mark  "  fair,"  or  "  settled,"  out  they  march 

in  thins,  without  great-coat  or  umbrella,  when 
such  a  thunder-plump  falls  down  in  a  deluge, 
that,  returning  home  by  water  and  steam,  they 
take  to  bed,  and  on  the  ninth  day  fever  hurries 
them  off,  victims  to  their  confidence  in  that 
treacherous  tube.  But  we  mean  to  ask,  have 
you  an  eye,  an  ear,  and  a  sixth  sense,  anony- 
mous and  instinctive,  for  all  the  progposticat- 
ing  sights  and  sounds,  and  motions  and  shapes, 
of  nature?  Have  you  studied,  in  silence  and 
solitude,  the  low,  strange,  and  spirit-like  whis- 
perings, that  often,  when  bird  and  bee  are 
mute,  come  and  go,  here  and  there,  now  from 
crag,  now  from  coppice,  and  now  from  moor, 
all  over  the  sultry  stillness  of  the  clouded  land- 
scape? Have  you  listened  among  mountains 
to  the  voice  of  streams,  till  you  heard  them 
prophesying  change  ?  Have  you  so  mastered 
the  occult  science  of  mists,  as  that  you  can 
foretell  each  proud  or  fair  Emergency,  and  the 
hour  when  grove,  precipice,  or  plain,  shall  in 
sudden  revelation  be  clothed  with  the  pomp  of 
sunshine  ?  Are  all  Bewick's  birds,  and  beasts, 
and  fishes  visible  to  vour  eyes  in  the  woods, 
wastes,  and  waves  of  the  clouds  ?  And  know 
ye  what  aerial  condor,  dragon,  and  whale,  re- 
spectively portend  ?  Are  the  Fata  Morgana  as 
familiar  to  )'ou  as  the  Aberdeen  Almanac ! 
"When  a  mile-square  hover  of  crows  darkens 
air  and  earih,  or  settling  loads  every  tree  with 
sable  fruitage,  are  you  your  own  augur,  equal- 
ly as  when  one  raven  lifts  up  his  hoary  black- 
ness from  a  stone,  and  sails  sullenly  off  with 
a  croak,  that  gels  fiercer  and  more  savage  in 
the  lofty  distance  ?  Does  the  leaf  of  the  forest 
twinkle  futurity  ?  the  lonely  lichen  brighten  or 
pale  its  lustre  with  change  ?  Does  not  the  gift 
of  prophecy  dwell  with  the  family  of  the  violets 
and  the  lilies?  The  prescient  harebells,  do 
they  not  let  drop  their  closing  blossoms  when 
the  heavens  are  niggard  of  their  dews,  or  up- 
hold them  like  cups  thirst}^  for  wine,  when  the 
blessing,  yet  unfelt  by  duller  animal  life,  is 
beginning  to  drop  balmily  down  from  the  rainy 

P      cloud  embosomed  in  the  blue  of  a  midsummer's 
meridian  day? 

Forgive  these  friendly  interrogatories.    Per- 
haps you  are  weather-wiser  than  ourselves; 


yet  for  not  a  few  years  we  bore  the  name  of 
"  The  Man  of  the  Mountains  ;"  and,  though  no 
great  linguists,  we  hope  that  we  know  some- 
what more  than  the  vocabulary  of  the  lan- 
guages of  calm  and  storm.  Remember  that 
we  are  now  at  Ambleside — and  one  week's 
residence  there  may  let  you  into  some  of  the 
secrets  of  the  unsteady  Cabinet  of  St.  Cloud. 

One  advice  Ave  give  you,  and  by  following  it 
you  cannot  fail  to  be  happy  at  Ambleside,  and 
everywhere  else.  Whatever  the  weather  be, 
love,  admire,  and  delight  in  it,  and  vow  that 
you  would  not  change  it  for  the  atmosphere  of 
a  dream.  If  it  be  close,  hot,  oppressive,  be 
thankful  for  the  faint  air  that  comes  down  fit- 
fully from  cliff  and  chasm,  or  the  breeze  that 
ever  and  anon  gushes  from  stream  and  lake. 
If  the  heavens  are  filled  with  sunshine,  and 
}'ou  feel  the  vanity  of  parasols,  how  cool  the 
silvan  shade  for  ever  moistened  by  the  mur- 
murs of  that  fairy  waterfall !  Should  it  blow 
great  guns,  cannot  you  take  shelter  in  yonder 
magnificent  fort,  whose  hanging  battlements 
are  warded  even  from  the  thunder-bolt  by  the 
dense  umbrage  of  unviolated  woods?  Rain — 
rain — rain — an  even-down  pour  of  rain,  that 
forces  upon  you  visions  of  Noah  and  his  ark, 
and  the  top  of  Mount  Ararat — still,  we  beseech 
you,  be  happy.  It  cannot  last  long  at  that  rate  ; 
the  thing  is  impossible.  Even  this  very  after- 
noon will  the  rainbow  span  the  blue  entrance 
into  Rydal's  woody  vale,  as  if  to  hail  the  wester- 
ing sun  on  his  approach  to  the  mountains— 
and  a  hundred  hill-born  torrents  Avill  be  seen 
flashing  out  of  the  up-folding  mists.  What  a 
delightful  dazzle  on  the  light-stricken  river ! 
Each  meadow  shames  the  lustre  of  the  em- 
erald ;  and  the  soul  wishes  not  for  language 
to  speak  the  pomp  and  prodigality  of  colours 
that  Heaven  now  rejoices  to  lavish  on  the 
grove-girdled  Fairfield,  who  has  just  tossed  off 
the  clouds  from  his  rocky  crest. 

You  will  not  imagine,  from  any  thing  we 
have  ever  said,  that  we  are  enemies  to  early 
rising.  Now  and  then,  what  purer  bliss  than 
to  embrace  the  new-wakened  Morn,  just  as 
she  is  rising  from  her  dewy  bed  !  At  such 
hour,  we  feel  as  if  there  were  neither  physical 
nor  moral  evil  in  the  world..  The  united  power 
of  peace,  innocence,  and  beauty  subdues  every 
thing  to  itself,  and  life  is  love. 

Forgive  us,  loveliest  of  Mornings !  for  hav- 
ing overslept  the  assignation  hour,  and  allowed 
thee  to  remain  all  by  thyself  in  the  solitude, 
wondering  why  thy  worshipper  cpuld  prefer  to 
thy  presence  the  fairest  phantoms  that  ever 
visited  a  dream.  And  thou  hast  forgiven  us — 
for  not  clouds  of  displeasure  these  that  have 
settled  on  thy  forehead;  the  unreproaching 
light  of  thy  countenance  is  upon  us — a  loving 
murmur  steals  into  our  heart  from  thine — and 
pure  as  a  child's,  daughter  of  Heaven  !  is  thy 
breath. 

In  the  spirit  of  that  invocation  we  look 


288 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


around  us,  and  as  the  idea  of  morning  dies, 
sufficient  for  our  happiness  is  "  the  light  of 
common  day" — the  imagery  of  common  earth. 
There  has  been  rain  during  the  night — enough, 
and  no  more,  to  enliven  nature — the  mists  are 
ascending  composedly  with  promise  of  gentle 
weather — and  the  sun,  so  mild  that  we  can 
look  him  in  the  face  with  unwinking  cj-es, 
gives  assurance  that  as  he  has  risen  so  will 
he  reign,  and  so  will  he  set  in  peace. 

Yet  we  cannot  help  thinking  it  somewhat 
remarkable,  that,  to  the  best  of  our  memory, 
never  once  Mere  we  the  very  first  out  into  the 
dawn.  We  say  nothing  of  birds — for  they, 
with  their  sweet  jargoning,  anticipate  it,  and 
from  their  bed  on  the  bough  feel  the  forerun- 
ning warmth  of  the  sunrise;  neither  do  we 
allude  to  hares,  for  they  are  "hirpiing  hamc," 
to  sleep  away  the'  light  hours,  open-eyed,  in 
the  briery  quarry  in  the  centre  of  the  trackless 
wood.  Even  cows  and  horses  we  can  excuse 
being  up  before  us,  for  they  have  bivouacked: 
and  the  latter,  as  they  often  sleep  standing, 
arc  naturally  somnambulists.  Weasels,  too, 
•we  can  pardon  for  running  across  the  road  be- 
fore us,  and  as  they  reach  the  hole-in-ihe-wall, 
showing  by  their  clear  eyes  that  they  have 
been  awake  ft>r  hours,  and  have  probably 
breakfasted  on  leveret.  We  have  no  spite  at 
chanticleer,  nor  the  hooting  cnvls  against  whom 
he  is  so  lustily  crowing  hours  before  the  orient ; 
nor  do  we  care  although  we  know  that  is  not 
the  first  sudden  plunge  of  the  tyrant  trout  into 
the  insect  cloud  already  hovering  over  the  tarn. 
But  we  confess  that  it  is  a  little  mortifying  to 
our  pride  of  time  and  pince,  to  meet  an  old 
beggar-woman,  who  from  the  dust  on  her  tat- 
tered brogues  has  evidently  marched  miles 
from  her  last  night's  wayside  howf,  and  who 
holds  out  her  withered  palm  for  charily,  at  an 
hour  when  a  cripple  of  fourscore  might  have 
been  supjiosed  sleeping  on  her  pallet  of  straw. 
A  pedlar,  too,  who  has  got  through  a  portion 
of  the  P^xcursion  before  the  sun  has  illumed 
the  mountain-tops,  is  mortifying,  with  his  piled 
pack  and  ellwand.  There,  as  we  are  a  Chris- 
tian, is  Ned  Hurd,  landing  a  pike  on  the  margin 
of  the  Reed-pool,  on  his  way  from  HaysM'aier, 
where  he  has  been  all  night  anglin?,  till  his 
creel  is  as  heavy  as  a  sermon  ;  and  a  liiile 
further  on,  comes  issuing  like  a  Dryad's 
daughter,  from  the  gate  in  the  lane,  sweet, 
little  Alice  Ellera}',  with  a  basket  dangling 
beneath  her  arm,  going  in  her  orphan  beauty 
to  gather,  in  their  season,  wild  strawberries  or 
violets  in  the  woods. 

Sweet  orphan  of  Wood-edge!  what  would 
many  a  childless  pair  give  for  a  creature  one- 
half  so  beautiful  as  thou,  lo  break  the  stillness 
of  a  home  that  wants  but  one  blessing  to  make 
it  perfectly  happy  !  Yet  there  are  few  or  none 
to  lay  a  hand  on  that  goldiMi  head,  or  leave  a 
kiss  upon  its  ringlets.  The  father  of  .^licc 
Elleray  was  a  wild  and  reckless  youth,  and, 
going  to  the  wars,  died  in  a  foreign  land.  Her 
mother  soon  faded  away  of  a  broken  heart; — 
and  who  was  to  care  for  the  orphan  child  of 
the  forgotten  friendless  ?  An  old  pauper  who 
lives  in  that  hut,  scarcely  distinguishable  from 
the  sheilings  of  the  charcoal-burners,  was  glad 
lo  take  her  from  the  parish  for  a  weekly  mite 


that  helps  lo  eke  out  her  own  subsistence.  For 
two  or  three  years  the  child  was  felt  a  burden 
by  the  solitary  widow  ;  but  ere  she  had  reached 
her  fifth  summer,  Alice  Elleray  never  left  the 
hut  without  darkness  seeming  to  overshadow 
it — never  entered  the  door  without  bringing  the 
sunshine.  Where  can  the  small,  lonely  crea- 
ture have  heard  so  many  tunes,  and  airs,  and 
snatches  of  old  songs — as  if  some  fairy  bird 
had  taught  her  melodies  of  fairy-land?  She  is 
now  in  her  tenth  year,  nor  an  idler  in  her  soli- 
tude. Do  you  wish  for  a  flowery  bracelet  for 
the  neck  of  a  chosen  one,  whose  perfumes  may 
mingle  with  the  bosom-balm  of  her  virgin 
beaut}'  1  The  orphan  of  Wood-edge  will  wreath 
it  of  blossoms  cropt  before  the  sun  hath  melted 
the  dew  on  leaf  or  petal.  Will  you  be  for  car- 
rying away  with  you  to  the  far-ofl"  city  some 
pretty  little  silvan  toy,  to  remind  you  of  Am- 
bleside, and  Rydal,  and  other  beautiful  names 
of  beautiful  localities  near  the  lucid  waters  of 
Windermere?  Then,  Lady!  purchase,  at  lit- 
tle cost,  from  the  fair  basket-maker,  an  orna- 
ment for  your  parlour,  that  will  not  disgrace 
its  fanciful  furniture,  and,  as  you  sit  at  your 
dreamy  needlework,  will  recall  the  green  forest- 
glades  of  Brathy  or  Calgarth.  Industrious 
creature  !  each  day  is  to  thee,  in  thy  simplicity, 
an  entire  life.  All  thoughts,  all  feelings,  arise 
and  die  in  peace  between  sunrise  and  sunset. 
What  carest  thou  for  being  an  orphan  !  know- 
ing, as  thou  well  dost,  that  God  is  thy  father 
and  thy  mother,  and  that  a  prayer  to  Him 
brings  health,  food,  and  sleep  to  the  innocent. 

Letting  drop  a  curtsy,  taught  by  Nature,  the 
mother  of  the  Graces,  .\lice  Elleray,  the  orphan 
of  Wood-edje,  without  wailing  to  be  twice 
bidden,  trills,  as  if  from  a  silver  pipe,  a  wild, 
bird-like  warble,  that  in  its  cheerfulness  has 
now  and  then  a  melancholy  fall,  and,  at  the 
close  of  the  song,  hers  are  the  only  eyes  that 
are  not  dimmed  with  the  liaze  of  tears.  Then 
away  she  glides  with  a  thankful  smile,  and 
dancing  over  the  greensward,  like  an  nncertain 
sunbeam,  lays  the  treasure,  won  by  her  beauty, 
her  skill,  and  her  industry,  on  the  lap  of  her 
old  guardian,  who  blesses  her  with  the  uplift- 
ing of  withered  hands. 

Meanwhile,  we  request  you  to  walk  away 
with  us  up  to  Stockgill-force.  There  has  been 
a  new  series  of  dry  weather,  to  be  sure;  but  to 
our  liking,  a  waterfall  is  best  in  a  rainless 
summer.  .After  a  flood,  the  noise  is  beyond  all 
endurance.  You  get  stunned  and  slupified  till 
your  head  splits.  Then  you  may  open  your 
mouth  like  a  barn-door — we  are  speaking  to 
you,  sir — and  roar  into  a  friend's  ear  all  in 
vain  a  remark  on  the  cataract.  To  him  you 
are  a  dumb  man.  In  two  minutes  you  are  as 
completely  drenched  in  spray  as  if  you  had 
lailen  out  of  a  boat — and  descend  to  dinner 
with  a  toothache  that  keeps  you  in  starvation 
in  ihe  pre.'cnce  of  provender  sufficient  for  a 
whole  bench  of  bishops.  In  dr)'  weather, 
on  the  contrary,  the  waterfall  is  in  moderation  ; 
and  instead  of  tumbling  over  the  cliff  in  a  per- 
petual peal  of  thunder,  why,  it  slides  and  slid- 
dcrs  merrily  and  musically  away  down  the 
green  shelving  rocks,  and  sinks  into  repose  in 
many  a  dim  or  lucid  pool,  amidst  whose  foam- 
bells  is  playing  or  asleep  the  fearless  Naiad. 


STROLL  TO   GRASSMERE. 


289 


Deuse  a  headache  have  you — speak  in  a  whis- 
per, and  not  a  syllable  of  your  excellent  obser- 
vation is  lost;  your  coat  is  dry,  except  that  a* 
few  dewdrops  have  been  shook  over  you  from 
the  branches  stirred  by  the  sudden  Aving-clap 
of  the  cushat — and  as  for  toothache  interfering 
with  dinner,  you  eat  as  if  your  tusks  had  been 
just  sharpened,  and  would  not  scruple  to  dis- 
cuss nuts,  upper-and-lower-jaw-work  fashion, 
against  the  best  crackers  in  the  county.  And  all 
this  comes  of  looking  at  Stockgill-force,  or  any 
other  waterfall,  in  dry  weather,  after  a  few  re- 
freshing and  fertilizing  showers  that  make  the 
tributary  rills  to  murmur,  and  set  at  work  a 
thousand  additional  feeders  to  every  Lake. 

Ha!  Matutine  Roses! — budding,  half-blown, 
consummate — you  are,  indeed,  in  irresistible 
blush !  We  shall  not  say  which  of  you  we 
love  best — she  Irnnws  it  ,•  but  we  see  there  is  no 
hope  to-day  for  the  old  man — for  you  are  all 
paired — and  he  must  trudge  it  solus,  in  capacity 
of  Guide-General  of  the  Forces.  What!  the 
nymphs  are  going  to  pony  it?  And^'ou  intend. 
you  selfish  fellows,  that  we  shall  hold  all  the 
reins  whenever  the  spirit  movelh  you  to  de- 
viate from  bridle-path,  to  clamber  cliff  for  a 
bird's-eye  view,  or  dive  into  dells  for  some  rare 
plant"!  Well,  well — there  is  a  tradition,  that 
once  we  were  young  ourselves;  and  so  redo- 
lent of  youth  are  these  hills,  that  we  are  more 
than  half  inclined  to  believe  it — so  blush  and 
titter,  and  laugh  and  look  down,  ye  innocent 
wicked  ones,  each  with  her  squire  by  her  pal- 
frey's name,  while  good  old  Christopher,  like  a 
true  guide,  keeps  hobbling  in  the  rear  on  his 
Crutch.  Holla  there! — to  the  right  of  our 
friend  Mr.  Benson's  smithy — and  to  Rothay- 
bridge.  Turn  in  at  a  gate  to  the  right  hand, 
which,  twenty  to  one,  you  will  find  open,  that 
the  cattle  may  take  an  occasional  promenade 
along  the  turnpike,  and  cool  their  palates  with 
a  little  ditch  grass,  and  saunter  along  by  Mil- 
lar-bridge and  Foxgill  on  to  Pelter-bridge,  and, 
if  you  please,  to  Rydal-mcre.  Thus,  and  thus 
only,  is  seen  the  vale  of  Ambleside;  and  what 
a  vale  of  grove,  and  glade,  and  stream,  and 
cliff,  and  cottage,  and  villa,  and  grass-field,  and 
garden,  and  orchard,  and — But  not  another 
word,  for  you  would  forthwith  compare  our 
description  with  the  reality,  and  seeing  it  faint 
and  feeble,  would  toss  it  into  the  Rothay, 
and  laugh  as  the  Vol.  plumped  over  a  water- 
fall! 

The  silvan — or  say  rather  the  forest  scenery 
— (for  there  is  to  us  an  indescribable  differ- 
ence between  these  two  words) — of  Rydal- 
park,  was,  in  memory  of  living  men,  magnifi- 
cent, and  it  still  contains  a  treasure  of  old 
trees.  Lady  Diana's  white  pea-fowl,  sitting  on 
the  limbs  of  that  huge  old  tree  like  creatures 
newly  alighted  from  the  Isles  of  Paradise!  all 
undisturbed  by  the  water-falls,  which,  as  you 
keep  gazing  on  the  long-depending  plumage  il- 
lumining the  forest-gloom,  seem  indeed  to  lose 
their  sound,  and  to  partake  the  peace  of  that 
resplendent  show — each  splendour  awondrous 
Bird !  For  they  stretch  themselves  all  up, 
with  their  graceful  crests,  o'ercanopied  by  the 
umbrage  draperied  as  from  a  throne.  And 
never  surely  were  seen  in  this  daylight  world 
such  unterrestrial  creatures — though  come 
37 


from  afar,  all  happy  as  at  home  in  the  Fairies' 
Oak. 

By  all  means  ride  away  into  these  woods,  and 
lose  yourselves  for  half  an  hour  among  the 
cooing  of  cushats,  and  the  shrill  shriek  of 
startled  blackbirds,  and  the  rustle  of  the  harm- 
less slow-worm  among  the  last  year's  red 
beech-leaves.  No  very  great  harm  in  a  kiss 
under  the  shadow  of  an  oak,  (oh  fie !)  while 
the  magpie  chatters  angrily  at  safe  distance, 
and  the  more  innocent  squirrel  peeps  down 
upon  you  from  a  bough  of  the  canopy,  and, 
hoisting  his  tail,  glides  into  the  obscurity  of 
the  loftiest  umbrage.  You  still  continue  to  see 
and  hear;  but  the  sight  is  a  glimmer,  and  the 
sound  ahum,  as  if  the  forest-glade  were  swarm- 
ing with  bees,  from  the  ground-flowers  to  the 
herons'  nests.  Refreshed  by  your  dream  of 
Dryads,  follow  a  lonesome  din  that  issues  from 
a  pile  of  wooded  cliffs,  and  you  are  led  to  a 
Water-fall.  Five  minutes  are  enough  for  tak- 
ing an  impression,  if  your  mind  be  of  the  right 
material,  and  you  carry  it  away  with  you  fur- 
ther down  the  Forest.  Such  a  torrent  wi^l  not 
reach  the  lake  without  disporting  itself  into 
many  little  cataracts  ;  and  saw  ye  ever  such  a 
fairy  one  as  that  flowing  through  below  an 
ivyed  bridge  into  a  circular  basin  oversha- 
dowed by  the  uncertain  twilight  of  many 
checkering  branches,  and  washing  the  rock- 
base  of  a  Hermitage,  in  which  a  sin-sickened, 
or  pleasure-palled  man  might,  before  his  hairs 
were  gray,  forget  all  the  gratifications  and  all 
the  guilt  of  the  noisy  world] 

You  are  now  all  standing  together  in  a  group 
beside  Ivy-cottage,  the  river  glidmg  below  its 
wooden  bridge  from  Rydal-mere.  It  is  a  per- 
fect model  of  such  architecture — breathing  the 
very  spirit  of  Westmoreland.  The  public  road, 
skirted  by  its  front  paling,  does  not  in  the  least 
degree  injure  its  character  of  privacy  and  re- 
tirement; so  we  think  at  this  dewy  hour  of 
prime,  when  the  gossamer  meets  our  faces, 
extended  from  the  honeysuckled  slate-porch  to 
the  trees  on  the  other  side  of  the  turnpike.  And 
see  how  the  multitude  of  low-hanging  roofs  and 
gable-ends,  and  dove-cot  looking  windows, 
steal  away  up  a  green  and  shrubberied  accli- 
vity, and  terminating  in  wooded  rocks  that 
seem  part  of  the  building,  in  the  uniting  rich- 
ness of  ivy,  lichens,  moss-roses,  broom,  and 
sweet-brier,  murmuring  with  birds  and  bees, 
busy  near  hive  and  nest!  It  would  be  ex- 
trernely  pleasant  to  breakfast  in  that  deep-win- 
dowed room  on  the  ground-floor,  on  cream  and 
barley-cakes,  eggs,  coffee,  and  dry-toast,  with 
a  little  mutton-ham  not  too  severely  salted,  and 
at  the  conclusion,  a  nut-shell  of  Glenlivet  ur 
Cogniac.  But,  Lord  preserve  ye  !  it  is  not  yet 
six  o'clock  in  the  morning ;  and  what  Chris- 
tian kettle  simmereth  before  seven  1  Yes,  my 
sweet  Harriet,  that  sketch  does  you  credit,  and 
it  is  far  from  being  very  unlike  the  original. 
Rather  too  many  chimneys  by  about  half-a- 
dozen  ;  and  where  did  you  find  that  steeple  im 
mediately  over  the  window  marked  "  Dairy  1' 
The  pigs  are  somewhat  too  sumptuously  lodged 
in  that  elegant  sty,  and  the  hen  roost  might  ac- 
commodate a  pha?nix.  But  the  .'eatures  of  the 
chief  porch  are  very  happily  hit  off— you  have 
caught  the  very  attic  spirit  of  the  roof— and 
2  B 


290 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


some  of  the  windows  may  be  justly  said  to  be ' 
staring  likenesses. — Ivy-cottage  is  slipped  into  ' 
our  portfolio,  and  we  shall  compare  it,  on  our 
return  to  Scotland,  with  Buchanan  Lodge. 

Gallantry  forbids,  but  Truth  demands  to  say, ' 
that  young  ladies  are  but  indifferent  sketchers. 
The  dear  creatures  have  no  notion  of  perspec- 
tive. At  flower-painting  and  embroidery,  they 
are  pretty  fair  hands,  but  they  make  sad  work 
among  waterfalls  and  ruins.  Notwithstanding, 
it  is  pleasant  to  hang  over  them,  seated  on  a 
stone  or  stool,  drawing  from  nature  ;  and  now 
and  then  to  help  them  in  with  a  horse  or  a 
hermit.  It  is  difficult,  almost  an  impossible 
thing — that  foreshortening.  The  most  specu- 
lative genius  is  often  at  a  loss  to  conjecture  the 
species  of  a  human  being  foreshortened  b)'  a 
young  lady.  The  hanging  Tower  at  Pisa  is, 
we  believe,  some  thirty  feet  or  so  off  the  per- 
pendicular, and  there  is  one  at  Caerphilly 
about  seventeen;  but  these  are  nothing  to  the 
castles  in  the  air  we  have  seen  built  by  the 
touch  of  a  female  magician  ;  nor  is  it  an  un- 
usual thing  with  artists  of  the  fair  sex  to  order 
their  plumed  chivalry  to  gallop  down  preci- 
pices considerably  steeper  than  a  house  on 
animals  apparently  produced  between  the  tiger 
and  the  bonassus.  When  they  have  succeeded 
in  getting  something  like  the  appearance  of 
water  between  what  may  be  conjectured  banks, 
they  are  not  very  particular  about  its  running 
occasionally  uphill ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  see 
a  stream  stealing  quietly  below  trees  in  gradual 
ascension,  till,  disappearing  for  a  few  minutes 
over  one  summit,  it  comes  thundering  down  an- 
other, in  the  shape  of  a  waterfall,  on  the  head 
of  an  elderly  gentleman,  unsuspectingly  read- 
ing Mr.  Wordsworth's  Excursion,  perhaps,  in 
the  foreground.  Nevertheless,  we  repeat,  that 
it  is  delightful  to  hang  over  one  of  the  dear 
creatures,  seated  on  stone  or  stool,  drawing 
from  nature;  for  whatever  may  be  the  pencil's 
skill,  the  eye  may  behold  the  glimpse  of  a  vi- 
sion whose  beauty  shall  be  remembered  when 
even  Windermere  herself  has  for  a  while  faded 
into  oblivion. 

On  such  excursions  there  are  sure  to  occur 
a  few  enviable  adventures.  First,  the  girths 
get  wrong,  and,  without  allowing  your  beloved 
virgin  to  alight,  you  spend  more  lime  than  is 
absolutely  necessary  in  arranging  them  ;  nor 
can  you  help  admiring  the  attitude  into  which 
the  graceful  creature  is  forced  to  draw  up  her 
delicate  limbs,  that  her  fairy  feet  may  not  be 
in  the  way  to  impede  your  services.  By  and 
by,  a  calf — which  you  hope  will  be  allowed  to 
grow  up  into  a  cow — stretching  up  hercurv-ed 
red  back  from  behind  a  wall,  startles  John 
Darby,  albeit  unused  to  the  starting  mood,  and 
you  leap  four  yards  to  the  timely  assistance  of 
the  fair  shrieker,  tenderly  pressing  her  bridle- 
hand  as  you  find  the  rein  that  has  not  bepn 
lost,  and  wonder  what  has  become  of  the  whip 
that  never  existed.  A  little  further  on,  a 
bridgeless  stream  crosses  the  road — a  danger- 
ous-looking ford  indeed — a  foot  deep  at  the 
very  least,  and  scorning  wet  feet,  as  they  ought 
to  be  scorned,  )'oii  almost  carry,  serene  in  dan- 
ger, your  afhanced  bride  (or  she  is  in  a  fair 
way  of  becoming  so)  in  your  arms  off  the  sad- 
dle, nor  rHinquish  the  delightful  clasp  till  all 


risk  is  at  an  end,  some  hundred  yards  on,  along 
the  velvet  herbage.  Next  stream  you  come  to 
has  indeed  a  bridge — but  then  what  a  bridge  ! 
A  long,  coggly,  cracked  slate  stone,  whose  un- 
steady clatter  would  make  the  soberest  steed 
jump  over  the  moon.  You  beseech  the  timid 
girl  to  sit  fast,  and  she  almost  leans  down  to 
your  breast  as  you  press  to  meet  the  blessed 
burden,  and  to  prevent  the  steady  old  stager 
from  leaping  over  the  battlements.  But  now 
the  chasm  on  each  side  of  the  narrow  path  is 
so  tremendous,  that  she  must  dismount,  after 
due  disentanglement,  from  that  awkward,  old- 
fashioned  crutch  and  pummel,  and  from  a  stir- 
rup, into  which  a  little  foot,  when  it  has  once 
crept  like  a  mouse,  finds  itself  caught  as  in  a 
trap  of  singular  construction,  and  difficult  to 
open  for  releasement.  You  feel  that  all  you 
love  in  the  world  is  indeed  fully,  freshly,  and 
warmly  in  your  arms,  nor  can  you  bear  to  set 
the  treasure  down  on  the  rough  stony  road,  but 
look  round,  and  round,  and  round,  for  a  soft 
spot,  which  you  finally  prophesy  at  some  dis- 
tance up  the  hill,  whitherwards,  in  spite  of 
pouting  Yea  and  Nay,  you  persist  in  carrying 
her  whose  head  is  ere  long  to  lie  in  your  tran- 
quil bosom. 

Ivy-cottage,  you  see,  is  the  domicile  of  gen- 
tlemen and  lady  folk  ;  but  look  through  yonder 
dispersion,  and  in  a  minute  or  two  your  eyes 
will  see  distinctl)',  in  spite  of  the  trees,  a  bona 
fide  farm-house,  inhabited  by  a  family  whose 
head  is  at  once  an  agriculturist,  a  shepherd, 
and  a  woodsman.  A  Westmoreland  cottage 
has  scarcely  any  resemblance  to  a  Scottish 
one.  A  Scottish  cottage  (in  the  Lowlands) 
has  rarely  any  picturesque  beauty  in  itself — a 
narrow  oblone:,  with  steep  thatched  roof,  and 
an  ear-like  chimney  at  each  of  the  two  gable- 
ends.  Many  of  the  Westmoreland  cottages 
would  seem,  to  an  ignorant  observer,  to  have 
been  originally  built  on  a  model  conceived  by 
the  finest  poetical  genius.  In  the  first  place, 
they  are  almost  always  built  precisely  where 
they  ought  to  be,  had  the  builder's  prime  ob- 
ject been  lo  beautify  the  dale;  at  least,  so 
we  have  often  felt  in  moods,  when  perhaps 
our  emotions  were  unconsciously  soothed  into 
complacencvby  the  spirit  of  the  scene.  Where 
the  sedgy  brink  of  the  lake  or  tarn  circles  into 
a  lone  bay,  with  a  low  hill  of  coppice-wood  on 
one  side,  and  a  few  tall  pines  on  the  other,  no 
— it  is  a  grove  of  sycamores — there,  about  a 
hundred  yards  from  the  water,  and  about  ten 
above  its  ordinary  level,  peeps  out  from  its 
cheerful  seclusion  that  prettiest  of  all  hamlets 
— Braithwaitefold.  The  hill  behind  is  scarcely 
silvan — yet  it  has  many  hazels — a  few  bushes 
— here  and  there  a  holly — and  why  or  where- 
fore, who  can  now  tell,  a  grove  of  enormous 
yews.  There  is  sweet  pasturage  among  the 
rocks,  and  as  you  may  suppose  it  a  spring-day, 
mild  without  much  sunshine,  there  is  a  bleat- 
ing of  lambs,  a  twitter  of  small  birds,  and  the 
deep  coo  of  the  stock-dove.  A  wreath  of  smoke 
is  always  a  feature  of  such  a  scene  in  descrip- 
tion ;  but  here  there  is  now  none,  for  probably 
the  whole  household  are  at  work  in  the  open  air, 
and  the  fire,  since  fuel  is  not  to  be  wasted,  has 
been  wisely  suffered  to  expire  on  the  hearth. 
No.    There  is  a  volume  of  smoke,  as  if  the 


STROLL  TO  GRASSMERE. 


291 


chimney  were  in  flame — a  tumultuous  cloud 
pours  aloft,  strag^jling  and  broken,  through  the 
broad  slate  stones  that  defend  the  mouth  of  the 
vomitory  from  every  blast.  The  matron  within 
is  doubtless  about  to  prepare  breakfast,  and 
last  year's  rotten  pea-sticks  hav^e  soon  heated 
the  capacious  gridiron.  Let  the  smoke-wreath 
melt  away  at  its  leisure,  and  do  you  admire, 
along  with  us,  the  infinite  variety  of  all  those 
little  shelving  and  sloping  roofs.  To  feel  the 
full  force  of  the  peculiarbeauty  of  these  antique 
tenements,  3'ou  must  understand  their  domes- 
tic economy.  If  ignorant  of  that,  you  can  have 
no  conception  of  the  meaning  of  any  one  thing 
you  see — roofs,  eaves,  chimneys,  beams,  props, 
doors,  hovels,  and  sheds,  and  hanging  stair- 
case, being  all  huddled  together,  as  you  think, 
in  unintelligible  confusion;  whereas  they  are 
all  precisely  what  and  where  they  ought  to  be, 
and  have  had  their  colours  painted,  forms 
shaped,  and  places  allotted  by  wind  and  wea- 
ther, and  the  perpetually  but  pleasantly  felt 
necessities  of  the  natural  condition  of  moun- 
taineers. 

Dear,  dear  is  the  thatch  to  the  eyes  of  a  son 
of  Caledonia,  for  he  may  remember  the  house 
in  which  he  was  born ;  but  what  thatch  was 
ever  so  beautiful  as  that  slate  from  the  quarry 
of  the  White-moss  ■?  Each  one — no — not  each 
one — but  almost  each  one — of  these  little  over- 
hanging roofs  seems  to  have  been  slated,  or 
repaired  at  least,  in  its  own  separate  season, 
so  various  is  the  lustre  of  lichens  that  bathes 
the  whole,  as  richly  as  ever  rock  was  bathed 
fronting  the  sun  on  the  mountain's  brow.  Here 
and  there  is  seen  some  small  window,  before 
unobserved,  curtained  perhaps — for  the  states- 
man, and  the  statesman's  wife,  and  the  states- 
man's daughters,  have  a  taste — a  taste  in- 
spired by  domestic  happiness,  which,  seeking 
simply  comfort,  unconsciously  creates  beauty, 
and  whatever  its  homely  hand  touches,  that  it 
adorns.  There  would  seem  to  be  many  fire- 
places in  Braithwaite-fold,  from  such  a  num- 
ber of  chimney-pillars,  each  rising  up  to  a  dif- 
ferent altitude  from  a  different  base,  round  as 
the  bole  of  a  tree — and  elegant,  as  if  shaped  by 
Vitruvius.  To  us,  we  confess,  there  is  nothing 
offensive  in  the  most  glaring  white  rough-cast 
that  ever  changed  a  cottage  into  a  patch  of 
sunny  snow.  Yet  here  that  grayish-tempered 
unobtrusive  hue  does  certainly  blend  to  per- 
fection with  roof,  rock,  and  sky.  Every  in- 
strument is  in  tune.  Not  even  in  silvan  glade, 
nor  among  the  mountain  rocks,  did  wanderer's 
eyes  ever  behold  a  porch  of  meeting  tree-stems, 
or  reclining  cliffs,  more  gracefully  festooned, 
than  the  porch  from  which  now  issues  one  of 
the  fairest  of  Westmeria's  daughters.  With 
one  arm  crossed  before  her  eyes  in  a  sudden 
burst  of  sunshine,  with  the  other  EUinorlnman 
waves  to  her  little  brother  and  sisters  among 
the  bark-peelers  in  the  Rydal  Avoods.  The 
graceful  signal  is  repeated  till  seen,  and  in  a 
few  minutes  a  boat  steals  twinkling  from  the 
opposite  side  of  the  lake,  each  tug  of  the  youth- 
ful rowers  distinctly  heard  through  the  hollow 
of  the  vale.  A  singing  voice  rises  and  ceases — 
as  if  the  singer  were  watching  the  echo — and 
is  not  now  the  picture  complete  1 

After  a  time  old  buildings  undergo  no  per- 


ceptible change,  any  more  than  old  trees;  and 
after  they  have  begun  to  feel  the  touch  of  de- 
cay, it  is  long  before  they  look  melancholy ;  for 
while  they  continue  to  be  used,  they  cannot 
help  looking  cheerful,  and  even  dilapidation 
is  painful  onlj^  when  felt  to  be  lifeless.     The 
house  now  in  ruins,  that  we  passed  a  few  hun- 
dred yards  ago  without  you  seeing  it — we  saw 
it  with  a  sigh — among  some  dark  firs,  just  be- 
fore we  began  to  ascend  the  hill,  was  many 
years   ago   inhabited   by  Miles  Mackareth,  a 
man  of  some  substance,  and  universally  es- 
teemed for  his  honest   and   pious   character. 
His  integrity,  however,  wanted  the  grace  of 
courteousness,  and  his  religion  was  somewhat 
gloomy  and  austere,  while  all  the  habits  of  his 
life  were  sad,  secluded,  and  solitary.    His  fire- 
side was  always  decent,  but  never  cheerful — 
there  the  passing  traveller  partook  of  an  un- 
grudging, but  a  grave  hospitality ;  and  although 
neighbours  dropping  in  unasked  were  always 
treated  as  neighbours,  yet  seldom  were  they 
invited  to  pass  an  evening  below  his  roof,  ex- 
cept upon  the  stated  festivals  of  the  seasons, 
or  some  domestic  event  demanding  socially, 
according  to  the  country  custom.    Year  after 
year  the  gloom  deepened  on  his  strong-marked 
intellectual  countenance;   and  his  hair,  once 
black  as  jet,  became  untimely  gray.     Indeed, 
although  little  more  than  fifty  years  old  when 
you  saw  his  head  uncovered,  you  would  have 
taken  him  for  a  man  approaching  to  threescore 
and  ten.     His    wife   and  only  daughter,  both 
naturally  of  a  cheerful  disposition,  grew  every 
year  more  retired,  till  at  last  they  shunned  so- 
ciety altogether,  and  were  seldom  seen  but  at 
church.   And  now  a  vague  rumour  ran  through 
the  hamlets  of  the  neighbouring  valleys,  that 
he  was  scarcely  in  his  right  mind — that  he  had 
been  heard  by  shepherds  on  the  hills  talking  to 
himself  wild  words,  and  pacing  up  and  down 
in  a  state  of  distraction.    The  family  ceased 
to  attend  divine  worship,  and  as  for  some  time 
the  Sabbath  had  been  the  only  day  they  were 
visible,  few  or  none  now  knew  how  they  fared, 
and  by  many  they  were  nearly  forgotten.  Mean- 
while, during  the  whole  summer,  the  miserable 
man  haunted  the  loneliest  places;  and,  to  the 
terror  of  his  wife  and  daughter,  who  had  lost 
all  power  over  him,  and  durst  not  speak,  fre- 
quently passed   whole   days   they   knew   not 
where,  and  came  home,  silent,  haggard,  and 
ghastly,   about   midnight.     His   widow    after- 
wards told  that  he  seldom   slept,  and   never 
without  dreadful  dreams— that  often  would  he 
sit  up  all  night  in  his  bed,  with  eyes  fixed  and 
staring  on  nothing,  and  uttering  ejaculations 
for  mercy  for  all  his  sins. 

What  these  sins  were  he  never  confessed — 
nor,  as  far  as  man  may  judge  of  man,  had  he 
ever  committed  any  act  that  needed  to  lie 
heavy  on  his  conscience.  But  his  whole 
being,  he  said,  was  one  black  sin— and  a 
spirit  had  been  sent  to  tell  him,  that  his  doom 
was  to  be  with  the  wicked  through  all  the  ages 
of  eternity.  That  spirit,  without  form  or  sha- 
dow—only a  voice— seldom  left  his  side  day 
or  night,  go  where  he  would;  but  its  most 
dreadful  haunt  was  under  a  steep  rock  called 
Blakeriggscaur;  and  thither,  in  whatever  di 
rection  he  turned  his  face  on  leaving  his  owd 


398 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


door,  he  was  led  by  an  irresistible  impulse, 
even  as  a  child  is  led  by  the  hand.  Tenderly 
and  truly  had  he  once  loved  his  wife  and 
daughter,  nor  less  because  that  love  had  been 
of  few  words,  and  with  a  shade  of  sorrow.  But 
now  he  looked  on  them  almost  as  if  they  had 
been  strangers — except  at  times,  when  he 
started  up,  kissed  them,  and  wept.  His  whole 
soul  was  possessed  by  horrid  fantasies,  of 
which  it  was  itself  object  and  victim;  and  it 
is  probable,  that  had  he  seen  them  both  lying 
dead,  he  would  have  left  their  corpses  in  the 
house,  and  taken  his  way  to  the  mountains. 
At  last  one  night  passed  away  and  he  came 
not.  His  wife  and  daughter,  who  had  not  gone 
to  bed,  went  to  the  nearest  house  and  told  their 
tale.  In  an  hour  a  hundred  feet  were  travers- 
ing all  the  loneliest  places — till  a  hat  was  seen 
floating  on  Loughrigg-tarn,  and  then  all  knew 
that  the  search  was  near  an  end.  Drags  were 
soon  got  from  the  fishermen  on  Windermere, 
and  a  boat  crossed  and  recrosscd  the  tarn  on 
its  miserable  quest,  till  in  an  hour,  during  which 
wife  and  daughter  sat  without  speaking  on  a 
stone  by  the  water-edge,  the  body  came  floating 
to  the  surface,  with  its  long  silver  hair.  One 
single  shriek  only,  it  is  said,  was  heard,  and 
from  that  shriek  till  three  years  afterwards, 
his  widow  knew  not  that  her  husband  was 
with  the  dead.  On  the  brink  of  that  small 
sandy  bay  the  body  was  laid  down  and  cleansed 
of  the  muddy  weeds — his  daughter's  own  hands 
assisting  in  the  rueful  wtirk — and  she  walked 
among  the  mourners,  the  day  before  the  Sab- 
bath, when  the  funeral  entered  the  little  burial- 
ground  of  Langdale  chapel,  and  the  congrega- 
tion sung  a  Christian  psalm  over  the  grave  of 
the  forgiven  suicide. 

We  cannot  patronize  the  practice  of  walking 
in  large  parties  of  ten  or  a  score,  ram-stam  and 
helter-skeller,  on  to  the  front-green  or  gravel- 
walk  of  any  private  nobleman  or  gentleman's 
house,  to  enjoy,  from  a  commanding  station, 
an  extensive  or  picturesque  view  of  the  cir- 
cumjacent countr}'.  It  is  too  much  in  the 
style  of  the  Free  and  Easy.  The  family  with- 
in, sitting  perhaps  at  dinner  with  the  windows 
open,  or  sewing  and  reading  in  a  cool  disha- 
bille, cannot  like  to  be  stared  in  upon  by  so 
many  curious  and  inquisitive  pupils  all  a-hunt 
for  prospects ;  nor  were  these  rose-bushes 
planted  there  for  public  use,  nor  that  cherry- 
tree  in  vain  netted  against  the  blackbirds.  Not 
but  that  a  party  may  now  and  then  excusably 
enough  pretend  to  lose  their  way  in  a  strange 
country;  and  looking  around  them  in  well- 
assumed  bewilderment,  bow  hesitatingly  and 
respectfully  to  maid  or  matron  at  door  or  win- 
dow, and,  with  a  thousand  apologies,  linger- 
ingly  ofier  to  retire  by  the  avenue  gate,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  spacious  lawn,  that  terrace- 
like hangs  over  vale,  lake,  and  river.  But  to 
avoid  all  possible  imputation  of  impertinence, 
follow  our  example,  and  make  all  such  in- 
cursions by  break  of  day.  We  hold  that,  for 
a  couple  of  hours  before  and  after  sunrise, 
all  the  earth  is  common  property.  Nobody 
surely  would  think  for  a  moment  of  looking 
Mack  on  any  number  of  freebooting  lakers 
coming  full  sail  up  the  avenue,  right  against 
tbe  front,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  1     At 


that  hcur,  even  the  poet  would  grant  them  the 
privilege  of  the  arbour  where  he  sits  when  in- 
spired, and  writing  for  immortality.  He  feels 
conscious  that  he  ought  to  have  been  in  bed; 
and  hastens,  on  such  occasions,  to  apologize 
for  his  intrusion  on  strangers  availing  them- 
selves of  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the 
Dawn. 

Leaving  Ivy-cottage,  then,  and  its  yet  un- 
breathing  chimneys,  turn  in  at  the  first  gate  to 
your  right,  (if  it  be  not  built  up,  in  which  case 
leap  the  wall,)  and  find  your  way  the  best  you 
can  through  among  old  pollarded  and  ivyed 
ash-trees,  intermingled  with  yews,  and  over 
knolly  ground,  brier-woven,  and  here  and  there 
whitened  with  the  jagged  thorn,  till  you  reach, 
through  a  slate  stile,  a  wide  gravel  walk,  shaded 
by  pine-trees,  and  open  on  the  one  side  to  an 
orchard.  Proceed — and  little  more  than  a  hun- 
dred steps  will  land  you  on  the  front  uf  Rydal- 
mount,  the  house  of  the  great  Poet  of  the  Lakes. 
Mr.  W^ordsworth  is  not  at  home,  but  away  to 
cloud  land  in  his  little  boat  so  like  the  crescent 
moon.  But  do  not  by  too  much  eloquence 
awaken  the  family,  or  scare  the  silence,  or 
frighten  "the  innocent  brightness  of  the  new- 
born day."  We  hale  all  scntimentalism;  but 
we  bid  you,  in  his  own  words, 

"With  gentle  hand 
Touch,  for  there  is  a  spirit  in  the  leaves  :" 

From  a  quaint  platform  of  evergreens  you 
see  a  blue  gleam  of  Windermere  over  the  grove- 
lops — close  at  hand  are  Rydal-hall  and  its  an- 
cient woods — right  opposite  the  Loughrigg- 
fells,  ferny,  rocky,  And  silvan,  but  the  chief 
breadth  of  breast  pastoral — and  to  the  right 
Rydal-mere,  seen,  and  scarcely  seen,  through 
embowering  trees,  and  mountain-masses  bathed 
in  the  morning  light,  and  the  white-wreathed 
mists  for  a  little  while  longer  shrouding  their 
summits.  A  lately  erected  private  chapel  lifts 
its  little  tower  from  below,  surrounded  by  a 
green,  on  which  there  are  yet  no  graves — nor 
do  we  know  if  it  be  intended  for  a  place  of 
burial.  A  few  houses  are  sleeping  beyond  the 
chapel  by  the  riverside;  and  the  people  begin- 
ning to  set  them  in  order,  here  and  there  a  pil- 
lar of  smoke  ascends  into  the  air,  giving  cheer- 
fulness and  animation  to  the  scene. 

The  Lake-Poets !  ay,  their  day  is  come. 
The  lakes  are  worthy  of  the  poets,  and  the 
poets  of  the  lakes.  That  poets  should  love 
and  live  among  lakes,  once  seemed  most  ab- 
surd to  critics  whose  domiciles  were  on  the 
Nor-Loch,  in  which  there  was  not  sufl^cient 
water  for  a  tolerable  quagmire.  Edinburgh 
Castle  is  a  noble  rock — so  are  the  Salisbury 
Craigs  noble  craigs — and  Arthur's  Seat  a  noble 
lion  couchant,  who,  were  he  to  leap  down  on 
Auld  Reekie,  would  break  her  back-bone  and 
bury  her  in  the  Cowgate.  But  place  them  by 
Pavey-ark,  or  Red-scaur,  or  the  glamour  of 
Glaramara,  and  they  would  look  about  as  mag- 
nificent as  an  upset  pack  of  cards.  Who,  pray, 
are  the  Nor-Loch  poets  1  Not  the  Minstrel — he 
holds  by  the  tenure  of  the  Tweed.  Not  Camp- 
hell — "he  heard  in  dreams  the  music  of  the 
Clyde."  Not  Joanna  Bailie — her  inspiration 
was  nursed  on  the  Calder's  silvan  banks  and 
the  moors  of  Strathaven.    Stream-loving  Coila 


STROLL  TO  GRASSMERE. 


293 


nurtured  Burns;  and  ihe  Shepherd's  grave  is 
close  to  the  cot  in  which  he  was  born — within 
hearing  of  the  Ettrick's  mournful  voice  on  its 
way  to  meet  the  Yarrow.  Skiddaw  oversha- 
dows, and  Greta  freshens  the  bower  of  him 
who  framed, 

"Of  Thalaba,  the  wild  and  wond'rous  song." 

Here  the  woods,  mountains,  and  waters  of  Ry- 
dal  imparadise  the  abode  of  the  wisest  of  na- 
ture's bards,  with  whom  poetry  is  religion.  And 
where  was  he  ever  so  happy  as  in  that  region, 
he  who  created  "  Christabelle,"  "  beautiful  ex- 
ceeding!)';" and  sent  the  "  Auncient  Mariner" 
on  the  wildest  of  all  voyagings,  and  brought 
him  back  with  the  ghastliest  of  all  crews,  and 
the  strangest  of  all  curses  that  ever  haunted 
crime  T 

Of  all  Poets  that  ever  lived:  Wordsworth  has 
been  at  once  the  most  truthful  and  the  most 
idealizing;  external  nature  from  him  has  re- 
ceived a  soul,  and  becomes  our  teacher;  while 
he  has  so  filled  our  minds  with  images  from 
her,  that  every  mood  finds  some  fine  afl!inities 
there,  and  thus  we  all  hang  for  sustenance  and 
delight  on  the  bosom  of  our  mighty  Mother. 
We  believe  that  there  are  many  who  have  an 
eye  for  Nature,  and  even  a  sense  of  the  beau- 
tiful, without  any  very  profound  feeling;  and 
to  them  Wordsworth's  finest  descriptive  pas- 
sages seem  often  languid  or  diffuse,  and  not  to 
present  to  their  eyes  any  distinct  picture.  Per- 
haps sometimes  this  objection  maybe  just; 
but  to  paint  to  the  eye  is  easier  than  to  the 
imagination — and  Wordsworth,  taking  it  for 
granted  that  people, can  now  see  and  hear,  de- 
sires to  make  them  feel  and  understand;  of  his 
pupil  it  must  not  be  said, 

"  A  primrose  by  the  river's  brim 
A  yellow  primrose  is  to  him. 
And  it  is  nothing  more  ;" 

the  poet  gives  the  something  more  till  we  start 
at  the  disclosure  as  at  a  lovel^' apparition — yet 
an  apparition  of  beauty  not  foreign  to  the 
flower,  but  exhaling  from  its  petals,  which  till 
that  moment  seemed  to  us  but  an  ordinary 
bunch  of  leaves.  In  these  lines  is  an  humbler 
example  of  how  recondite  may  be  the  spirit  of 
beauty  in  any  most  familiar  thing  belonging  to 
the  kingdom  of  nature  ;  one  higher  far — but  of 
the  same  kind — is  couched  in  two  immortal 
verses — 

"  To  me  the  humblest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 

In  what  would  the  poet  differ  from  the  wor- 
thy man  of  prose,  if  his  imagination  possessed 
not  a  beautifying  and  transmuting  power  over 
the  objects  of  the  inanimate  worldl  ]>»ay,  even 
the  naked  truth  itself  is  seen  clearly  but  by 
poetic  eyes;  and  were  a  sumph  all  at  once  to 
isecome  a  poet,  he  would  all  at  once  be  stark- 
"s'aring  mad.  Yonder  ass  licking  his  lips  at  a 
tiiistle,  sees  but  water  for  him  to  drink  in  Win- 
dermere a-glow  with  the  golden  lights  of  set- 
ting suns.  The  ostler  or  the  boots  at  Lowood- 
inn  takes  a  somewhat  higher  flight,  and  for  a 
moment,  pausing  with  curry-comb  or  black- 
ing-brush in  his  suspended  hand, calls  on  Sally 
Chambermaid  for  gracious  sake  to  look  at 
Pull-wyke.  The  waiter  who  has  cultivated 
his  taste  from  conversation  with  Lakers,  learns 


their  phraseology,  and  declares  the  sunset  to 
be  exceedingly  handsome.  The  Laicer,  who 
sometimes  has  a  soul,  feels  it  rise  within  him 
as  the  rim  of  the  orb  disappears  in  the  glow 
of  softened  fire.  The  artist  compliments  Na- 
ture, by  likening  her  evening  glories  to  a  pic- 
ture of  Claud  Lorraine — while  the  poet  feels 
the  sense  sublime 

"Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused. 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns. 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air. 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man  ; 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought. 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

Compare  any  one  page,  or  any  twenty  pages, 
with  the  character  given  of  Wordsworth's 
poetry  in  the  obsolete  criticism  that  sought  to 
send  it  to  oblivion.  The  poet  now  sits  on  his 
throne  in  the  blue  serene — and  no  voice  from 
below  dares  deny  his  supremacy  in  his  own 
calm  dominions.  And  was  it  of  him,  whom 
devout  imagination,  dreaming  of  ages  to  come 
now  sees,  placed  in  his  immortality  between 
Milton  and  Spenser,  that  the  whole  land  once 
rang  with  ridicule,  while  her  wise  men  wiped 
their  eyes  "  of  tears  that  sacred  pity  had  en- 
gendered," and  then  relieved  their  hearts  by 
joining  in  the  laughter  "  of  the  universal  Bri- 
j  tish  nation"!"  All  the  ineffable  absurdities  of 
!  the  bard  are  now  embodied  in  Seven  Volumes 
I  — the  sense  of  the  ridiculous  still  survives 
among  us — our  men  of  wit  and  power  are  not 
1  all  dead — we  have  yet  our  satirists,  great  and 
small — editors  in  thousands,  and  contributors 
in  tens  of  thousands — yet  not  a  whisper  is 
heard  to  breathe  detraction  from  the  genius  of 
the  high-priest  of  nature;  while  the  voice  of 
the  awakened  and  enlightened  land  declares  it 
to  be  divine — using  towards  him  not  the  lan- 
guage merely  of  admiration  but  of  reverence — 
of  love  and  gratitude,  due  to  a  benefactor  of 
humanity,  who  has  purified  its  passions  by 
loftiest  thoughts  and  noblest  sentiments,  still- 
ing their  turbulence  by  the  same  processes  that 
magnify  their  power,  and  showing  how  the 
soul,  in  ebb  and  flow,  and  when  its  tide  is  at 
full,  may  be  at  once  as  strong  and  as  serene  as 
the  sea. 

There  are  few  pictures  painted  by  him 
merely  for  the  pleasure  of  the  eye,  or  even  the 
imagination,"  though  all  the  pictures  he  ever 
painted  are  beautiful  to  both  ;  they  have  all  a 
moral  meaning — many  a  meaning  more  than 
moral — and  his  poetry  can  be  comprehended, 
in  its  full  scope  and  spirit,  but  by  those  who 
feel  the  sublimity  of  these  four  lines  in  his 
"  Ode  to  Duty" — 

"Flowers  laugh  before  thee  on  their  beds. 
And  frngrance  in  thy  footing  treads  ; 
Thou  dost  preserve  the  stars  from  wrong 
And  the  most  ancient  heavens  through  thee  are  fresh 
and  strong." 

Is  thy  life  disturbed  by  guilty  or  sinful   pas- 
sions 1     Have  they  gained  a  mastery  of  thee- 
and  art  thou  indeed  their  slave  1     Then  tht 
poetry  of  Wordsworth  must  be  to  thee 
"  As  is  a  picture  to  a  blind  man's  eye ;" 

or  if  thine  e5'es  yet  see  the  light  in  which  it  i^ 

enveloped,  and  thy  heart  yet  feels  the  beauty 

it  reveals,  in  spite  of  the  clouds  that  oveihang 

2b2 


294 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


and  the  5:t.)rms  that  trouble  them,  that  beauty 
will  be  unbearable,  till  regret  become  remorse, 
and  remorse  penitence,  and  penitence  restore 
thee  to  those  intuitions  of  the  truth  that  illu- 
mine his  sacred  pages,  and  thou  knowesi  and 
feelest  once  more  that 

"The  primal  duties  that  shine  aloft— like  stars," 

that  life's  best  pleasures  grow  like  flowers  all 
around  and  beneath  thy  feet. 

Nor  are  we  not  privileged  to  cherish  a  bet- 
ter feeling  than  pride  in  the  belief,  or  rather 
knowledge,  that  Wk  have  helped  to  difluse 
Wordsworth's  poetry  not  only  over  this  island, 
but  the  furthest  dependencies  of  the  British 
empire,  and  throughout  the  Tnited  States  of 
America.  Many  thousands  have  owed  to  us 
their  emancipation  from  the  prejudices  against 
it,  under  which  they  had  wilfully  remained 
ignorant  of  it  during  many  years  ;  and  we  have 
instructed  as  many  more,  whose  hearts  were 
free,  hf)W  to  look  on  it  with  those  eyes  of  love 
which  alone  can  discover  the  Ucautiful.  Cum- 
munications  have  been  made  to  us  from  across 
the  Atlantic,  and  from  the  licart  of  India — from 
the  Occident  and  the  Orient — thanking  us  for 
having  vindicated  and  exlcmled  ihe  fame  of  the 
best  of  our  living  bards,  till  the  name  of 
Wordsworth  has  become  a  household  word  on 
the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  (Janges. 
It  would  have  been  so  had  we  never  lived,  htu 
rot  .10  soon  .•  and  many  a  noble  nature  has  wor- 
shipped his  genius,  as  displayed  in  our  pages, 
not  in  fragments  but  in  perfect  poems,  ,iccom- 
panied  with  our  comments,  who  had  no  means 
in  those  distant  regions  of  possessing  his  vo- 
lumes, whereas  Maga  flies  on  wings  to  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth. 

As  for  our  own  dear  Scotland — for  whose 
sake,  with  all  her  faults,  the  light  of  day  is 
sweet  to  our  eyes — twenty  years  ago  there 
were  not  twenty  copies — we  question  if  there 
were  ten — of  the  Lyrical  Ballads  in  all  the 
land  of  the  mountain  and  the  flood.  Now 
Wordsworth  is  studied  all  Scotland  over — and 
Scotland  is  proud  and  happy  to  know,  frcun  his 
Memorials  of  the  Tours  he  has  made  through 
her  brown  heaths  and  shaggy  woods,  that  the 
Bard's  heart  overflows  with  kindness  towards 
her  children — that  his  songs  have  celebrated 
the  simple  and  heroic  characlervf  her  olden 
times,  nor  left  unhonoured  the  virtues  that  yet 
survive  in  her  national  character.  All  her 
generous  youth  regard  him  now  as  a  great 
Poet;  and  we  have  been  more  afl"ecttd  than  we 
should  choose  to  confess,  by  the  grateful  ac- 
knowledgment of  many  a  gifted  spirit,  that  to  us 
It  was  owing  that  they  hatl  opened  their  eyes 
and  their  hearts  to  the  ineffable  beauty  of  that 
poetry  in  which  they  had,  under  our  instruc- 
tions, found  not  a  vain  visionary  delight,  but  a 
strength  and  sticcour  and  consolation,  breathed 
as  from  a  shrine  in  the  silence  and  solitude  of 
nature,  in  which  stood  their  father's  hut,  sanc- 
tifying their  humble  birthplace  with  pious 
thouglils  that  made  the  very  weekdays  to  them 
like  Sabbaths — nor  on  the  evening  of  the  Sab- 
bath might  they  not  blamelessly  be  blended 
with  those  breathed  from  the  Bible,  enlarging 
•heii  .^ouls  to  religion  by  those  meditative 
moods  which  such  pure  poetry  inspires,  and 


by  those  habits  of  reflection  which  its  study 
forms,  when  pursued  under  the  influence  of 
thoughtful  peace. 

Why,  if  it  were  not  for  that  everlasting — 
we  beg  pardon — immortal  W  nrdsworth — the 
Lakes,  and  all  that  belong  to  them,  would  be 
our  own — jure  divitio — for  we  are  the  heir-ap- 
parent to  the 

"  Sole  King  of  rocky  Cumberland." 

But  Wordsworth  never  will — never  can  die ; 
and  so  we  are  in  danger  of  being  cheated  out  of 
our  due  dominion.  We  cannot  think  this  father- 
ly treatment  of  such  a  son — and  yet  in  our  lofti- 
est moods  of  filial  reverence  we  have  heard  our- 
selves exclaming,  while 

"The  Cataract  of  Lodore 
Peal'd  to  our  orisons," 

0  King  !  live  for  ever  ! 

Therefore,  with  the  fear  of  the  Excursion  be- 
fore our  ej'es,  we  took  to  prose — to  numerous 
prose — ay,  though  we  say  it  that  should  nut 
say  it,  to  prose  as  numerous  as  any  verse — 
and  showed  such  scenes 

"  As  savage  Rosa  dash'd,  or  learned  Poussin  drew." 

Here  an  English  lake — there  a  Scottish  loch — 
till  Turner  grew  jealous,  and  Thomson  flung 
his  brush  at  one  of  his  own  unfinished  moun- 
tains— when  lo  !  a  miracle!  Creative  of  gran- 
deur in  his  very  despair,  he  stood  astonished 
at  the  cliff  that  came  prerupt  from  his  canvas, 
and  christened  itself  "the  Eagle's  Eyrie,"  as 
it  frowned  mrencly  upon  the  sea,  maddening  in 
a  foamy  circle  at  its  inacces.sible  feet. 

Only  in  such  prose  as  ours  can  the  heart 
pour  forth  its  ellusiouj  like  a  strong  spring, 
dischargmg  ever  so  many  gallons  in  a  minute, 
either  into  pipes  that  conduct  it  through  some 
great  Metropolitan  c;^ty,  or  into  a  water-course 
that  soon  becomes  a  rivulet,  then  a  stream, 
then  a  river,  then  a  lake,  and  then  a  sea. 
Would  Fancy  luxuriate  !  Then  let  her  expand 
wings  of  prose.  In  verse,  however  irregular, 
her  flight  is  lime-twigged,  and  she  soon  takes 
to  hopping  on  the  ground.  Would  Imagination 
dive  ]  Let  the  bell  in  which  she  sinks  be  con- 
structed on  the  prose  principle,  and  deeper 
than  ever  plummet  sunk,  it  will  startle  .mon- 
sters at  the  roots  of  the  coral  caves,  yet  be  im- 
pervious to  the  strokes  of  the  most  tremendous 
of  tails.  Would  she  soar?  In  a  prose  balloon 
she  seeks  the  stars.  There  is  room  and  power 
of  ascension  for  any  quantity  of  ballast — fling 
it  out  and  up  she  goes !  Let  some  gas  escape, 
and  she  descends  far  more  gingerly  than  Mrs. 
Graham  and  his  Serene  Highness  ;  the  grapnel 
catches  a  stile,  and  she  steps  "  like  a  drerfdiess 
angel  unpursued  "  once  mitre  upon  terra  finnn, 
and  may  then  celebrate  her  aerial  voyage,  if 
she  choose,  in  an  Ode  which  will  be  sure  near 
the  end  to  rise — into  prose. 

Prose,  we  believe,  is  destined  to  drive  what 
is  called  Poetry  out  of  the  world.  Here  is  a 
fair  challenge.  Let  any  Poet  .send  us  a  poem 
of  five  hundred  lines — blanks  or  not— on  any 
subject;  and  we  shall  write  on  that  subject  a 
passage  of  the  same  number  of  words  in 
prose;  and  the  Editors  of  the  (Quarterly,  Edin- 
burgh, and  Westminister,  shall  decide  which 
deserves  the  prize.  Milton  was  wofully  wrong 
in  speaking  of  "prose  or  numerous  verse." 


STROLL  TO  GRASSMERE. 


295 


Prose  is  a  million  times  more  numerous  than 
verse.  Then  prose  improves  the  more  poeticalj 
it  becomes  ;  but  verse,  the  moment  it  becomes 
prosaic,  goes  to  the  dogs.  Then,  the  connect- 
ing links  between  two  fine  passages  in  verse, 
it  is  enjoined,  shall  be  as  little  like  verse  as 
possible ;  nay,  whole  passages,  critics  say, 
should  be  of  that  sort ;  and  why,  pray,  not 
prose  at  once  1  Why  clip  the  King's  English, 
or  the  Emperor's  German,  or  the  Sublime 
Porte's  Turkish,  into  bits  of  dull  jingle — pre- 
tending to  be  verses  merely  because  of  the 
proper  number  of  syllables — some  of  them  im- 
prisoned perhaps  in  parentheses,  where  they 
sit  helplessly  protruding  the  bare  soles  of  their 
feet,  like  folks  that  have  got  muzzy,  in  the  stocks? 
Wordsworth  says  well,  that  the  language 
of  common  people,  when  giving  utterance  to 
passionate  emotions,  is  highly  figurative  ;  and 
hence  he  concludes  not  so  well  fit  for  a  lyrical 
ballad.  Their  volubility  is  great,  nor  few  their 
flowers  of  speech.  But  who  ever  heard  them, 
but  by  the  merest  accident,  spout  verses'? 
Rhyme  do  they  never — the  utmost  they  reach 
is  occasional  blanks.  But  their  prose!  Ye 
gods  !  how  they  do  talk  !  The  washerwoman 
absolutely  froths  like  her  own  tub ;  and  3»ou 
never  dream  of  asking  her  "  how  she  is  off  for 
soapl"  Paradise  Lost !  The  Excursion  !  The 
Task  indeed!  No  man  of  woman  born,  no 
woman  by  man  begotten,  ever  yet  in  his  or  her 
senses  spoke  like  the  authors  of  those  poems. 
Hamlet,  in  his  sublimest  moods,  speaks  in 
prose — Lady  Macbeth  talks  prose  in  her  sleep 
— and  so  it  should  be  printed.  "  Out,  damned 
spot !"  are  three  words  of  prose  ;  and  who  that 
beheld  Siddons  wringing  her  hands  to  wash 
them  of  murder,  did  not  feel  that  they  were 
the  most  dreadful  ever  extorted  by  remorse 
from  guilt  ] 

A  green  old  age  is  the  most  loving  season 
of  life,  for  almost  all  the  other  passions  are 
then  dead  or  dying — or  the  mind,  no  more  at 
the  mercy  of  a  troubled  heart,  compares  the 
little  pleasure  their  gratification  can  ever  yield 
now  with  what  it  could  at  any  time  long  ago, 
and  lets  them  rest.  Envj'  is  the  worst  dis- 
turber or  embitterer  of  man's  declining  years  ; 
but  it  does  not  deserve  the  name  of  a  passion 
— and  is  a  disease,  not  of  the  poor  in  spirit — 
for  they  are  blessed — but  of  the  mean,  and  then 
they  indeed  are  cursed.  For  our  own  parts 
we  know  Envy  but  as  we  have  studied  it  in 
others — and  never  felt  it  except  towards  the 
wise  and  good ;  and  then  'twas  a  longing 
desire  to  be  like  them — painful  only  when  we 
thought  that  might  never  be,  and  that  all  our 
loftiest  aspirations  might  be  in  vain.  Our 
envy  of  Genius  is  of  a  nature  so  noble,  that  it 
knows  no  happiness  like  that  of  guarding  from 
mildew  the  laurels  on  the  brows  of  the  Muses' 
Sons.  What  a  dear  kind  soul  of  a  critic  is  old 
Christopher  North  !  Watering  the  flowers  of 
poetry,  and  removing  the  weeds  that  might 
choke  them — letting  in  the  sunshine  upon  them, 
and  fencing  them  from  the  blast — proclaiming 
where  the  gardens  grow,  and  leading  boys 
and  virgins  into  the  pleasant  alleys — teaching 
hearts  to  love  and  eyes  to  see  their  beauty, 
and  classifying,  by  the  attributes  it  has  pleased 
nature  to  bestow  on  the  various  orders,  the 


plants  of  Paradise — This  is  our  occupation — 
and  the  happiness  of  witnessing  them  all  grow 
ing  in  the  light  of  admiration  is  our  reward. 

Finding  our  way  back  as  we  choose  to  Ivy- 
cottage,  we  cross  the  wooden  bridge,  and  away 
along  the  western  shore  of  Rydal-mere.  Hence 
you  see  the  mountains  in  magnificent  compo- 
sition, and  craggy  coppices  with  intervening 
green  fields  shelving  down  to  the  lake  margin. 
It  is  a  small  lake,  not  much  more  than  a  mile 
round,  and  of  a  very  peculiar  character.  One 
memorable  cottage  only,  as  far  as  we  remem- 
ber, peeps  on  its  shore  from  a  grove  of 
sycamores,  a  statesman's  pleasant  dwelling; 
and  there  are  the  ruins  of  another  on  a  slope 
near  the  upper  end,  the  circle  of  the  garden 
still  visible.  Every  thing  has  a  quiet  but 
wildish  pastoral  and  silvan  look,  and  the  bleat- 
ing of  sheep  fills  the  hollow  of  the  hills.  The 
lake  has  a  reedy  inlet  and  outlet,  and  the  ang- 
ler thinks  of  pike  when  he  looks  upon  such 
harbours.  There  is  a  single  boat-house,  where 
the  Lady  of  the  Hall  has  a  padlocked  and 
painted  barge  for  pleasure  parties;  and  the 
heronry  on  the  high  pine-trees  of  the  only 
island  connects  the  scene  with  the  ancient  park 
of  Rydal,  whose  oak  woods,  though  thinned 
and  decayed,  still  preserve  the  majestic  an'i 
venerable  character  of  antiquity  and  baronal 
state. 

Having  taken  a  lingering  farewell  of  Rydal- 
mere,  and  of  the  new  Chapel-tower,  that  seems 
among  the  groves  already  to  be  an  antique, 
we  may  either  sink  down  to  the  stream  that 
flows  out  of  Grassmere  and  connects  the  two 
lakes,  crossing  a  wooden  bridge,  and  then  join- 
ing the  new  road  that  sweeps  along  to  the 
Village,  or  we  may  keep  up  on  the  face  of  the 
hill,  and  by  a  terrace-path  reach  the  Loughrigg- 
road,  a  few  hundred  yards  above  Tail-end,  a 
pretty  cottage-ornee  which  you  will  observe 
crowning  a  wooded  eminence,  and  looking 
cheerfully  abroad  over  all  the  vale.  There  is 
one  Mount  in  particular,  whence  we  see  to 
advantage  the  delightful  panorama— encircling 
mountains — Grassmere  Lake  far  down  below 
your  feet,  with  its  one  green  pastoral  isle,  sil- 
van shores,  and  emerald  meadows — huts  and 
homes  sprinkled  up  and  down  in  all  directions 
— the  village  partly  embowered  in  groves,  and 
partly  open  below  the  shadow  of  large  single 
trees^— and  the  Churchtower,  almost  always  a 
fine  feature  in  the  scenery  of  the  north  of 
England,  standing  in  stately  simplicity  among 
the  clustering  tenements,  nor  dwindled  evea 
by  the  great  height  of  the  hills. 

It  is  pleasant  to  lose  sight  entirely  of  a 
beautiful  scene,  and  to  plod  along  for  a  few 
hundred  yards  in  almost  objectless  shadow. 
Our  conceptions  and  feelings  are  bright  and 
strong  from  the  nearness  of  their  objects,  yet 
the  dream  is  somewhat  different  from  the  real- 
ity. All  at  once,  at  a  turning  of  the  road,  the 
splendour  reappears  like  an  unfurled  banner, 
and  the  heart  leaps  in  the  joy  of  the  senses. 
This  sort  of  enjoyment  comes  upon  you  before 
you  reach  the  Village  of  Grassmere  frcm  the 
point  of  vision  above  described,  and  a  stranger 
sometimes  is  apt  to  doult  if  it  be  really  the 
same  Lake— that  one  island,  and  those  few 
promontories,  shifting  into  such  varied  combi 


896 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


nations  with  the  varying  mountain-ridges  and 
ranges,  that  sliow  top  over  top  in  bewildering 
succession,  and  give  hints  of  other  valleys 
beyond,  and  of  Tarns  rarely  visited,  among  the 
moorland  wastes.  A  single  long  dim  shadow, 
falling  across  the  water,  alters  the  whole  physi- 
ognomy of  the  scene — nor  less  a  single  bright 
streak  of  sunshine,  brightening  up  some  fea- 
ture formerly  hidden,  and  giving  animation 
and  expression  to  the  whole  face  of  the  Lake. 

About  a  short  mile  from  the  Village  Inn,  you 
will  pass  by,  without  seeing  it — unless  warned 
not  to  do  so — one  of  the  most  singularly  beau- 
tiful habitations  in  the  wi>rld.  It  belongs  to  a 
gentleman  of  the  name  of  Barber,  and,  we  be- 
lieve, has  been  almost  entirely  built  by  him — 
the  original  hut  on  which  his  taste  has  worked 
having  been  a  mere  shell.  The  spirit  of  the 
place  seems  to  us  to  be  that  of  Shadowy  Si- 
lence. Its  bounds  are  small ;  but  it  is  an  indi- 
visible part  of  a  hillside  so  secret  and  silvan, 
that  it  might  be  the  haunt  of  the  roe.  You 
hear  the  tinkle  of  a  rill,  invisible  among  the 
hazels — a  bird  sings  or  flutters — a  bee  hums 
his  way  through  the  bewildering  woods — but 
no  louder  sound.  Some  fine  old  forest-trees 
extend  widely  their  cool  and  glimmering  shade; 
and  a  few  stumps  or  armless  trunks,  whose 
bulk  is  increased  by  a  load  of  ivy  that  hides 
the  hollow  wherein  the  owls  have  their  domi- 
rile,  give  an  air  of  antiquity  to  the  spot,  that, 
but  for  other  accompaniments,  would  almost 
be  melancholy.  As  it  is,  the  scene  has  a  pen- 
sive character.  As  yet  you  have  seen  no 
house,  and  wonder  whither  the  gravel-walks 
are  to  conduct  you,  winding  fancifully  and 
fantastically  through  the  smooth-shaven  lawn, 
bestrewed  by  a  few  large  leaves  of  the  hor^e- 
chestnut  or  sycamore.  But  there  are  clus- 
tered verandas  where  the  nightingale  might 
woo  the  rose,  and  lattice-windows  reaching 
from  eaves  to  ground-sill,  so  sheltered  that 
thev  might  stand  open  in  storm  and  rain,  and 
tall  circular  chimneys,  shaped  almost  like  the 
stems  of  the  trees  that  overshadow  the  roof 
irregular,  and  over  all  a  gleam  of  blue  sky  and 
a  few  motionless  clouds.  The  noisy  world 
ceases  to  be,  and  the  tranquil  heart,  delighted 
with  the  sweet  seclusion,  breathes,  "  Oh  !  that 
this  were  my  cell,  and  that  I  were  a  hermit !" 

But  you  soon  see  that  the  proprietor  is  not  a 
hermit;  for  everywhere  you  discern  unosten- 
tatious traces  of  that  elegance  and  refinement 
that  belong  to  social  and  cultivated  life;  no- 
thing rude  and  rough-hewn,  yet  nothing  prim 
and  precise.  Snails  and  spiders  are  tauirht  to 
keep  their  own  places;  and  among  the  llowers 
of  that  hanging  garden  on  a  sunny  slope,  not  a 
weed  is  to  be  seen,  for  weeds  are  beautiful 
only  by  the  wayside,  in  the  matting  of  hedge- 
roots,  by  the  mossy  stone,  and  the  brink  of  the 
well  in  the  brae — and  are  otfensive  only  when 
they  intrude  into  society  above  their  own  rank, 
and  where  they  have  the  air  and  accent  of 
aliens.  By  pretty  pebbled  steps  of  stairs  you 
mount  up  from  platform  to  platform  of  the 
sloping  woodland  banks — the  prospect  widen- 
tng  as  you  ascend,  till  from  a  bridge  that  spans 
a  leaping  rivulet,  you  behold  in  full  blow  all 
(Srassmere  Vale.  Village,  Church-tower,  and 
l.;ike.  the  whole  of  the  mountains,  and  a  noble 


arch  of  sky,  the  circumference  of  that  little 
world  of  peace. 

Circumscribed  as  are  the  boundaries  of  this 
place,  yet  the  grounds  are  so  artfully,  while  one 
thinks  so  artlessly,  laid  out,  that,  wandering 
through  their  labyrinthine  recesses,  you  might 
believe  yourself  in  an  extensive  wilderness. 
Here  you  come  out  upon  a  green  open  glade — 
(you  see  by  the  sundial  it  is  past  seven  o'clock) 
— there  the  arms  of  an  immense  tree  oversha- 
dow what  is  in  itself  a  scene — yonder  you  have 
an  alley  that  serpentizes  into  gloom  and  ob 
scurity — and  from  that  cliff  you  doubtless 
would  see  over  the  tree-tops  into  the  outer  and 
airy  world.  With  all  its  natural  beauties  is 
intermingled  an  agreeable  quainlness,  that 
shows  the  owner  has  occasionally  been  work- 
ing in  the  spirit  of  fancy,  almost  caprice;  the 
tool-house  in  the  garden  is  not  without  its  orna- 
ments— the  barn  seems  habitable,  and  the  byre 
has  somewhat  the  appearance  of  a  chapel. 
You  see  at  once  that  the  man  who  lives  here, 
instead  of  being  sick  of  the  world,  is  attached 
to  all  elegant  sociallies  and  amities;  that  he 
uses  silver  cups  instead  of  maple  bowls,  shows 
his  scallop-shell  among  other  curiosities  in  his 
cabinet,  and  will  treat  the  passing  pilgrim  with 
pure  water  from  the  spring,  if  he  insists  upon 
that  beverage,  but  will  first  ofler  him  a  glass 
of  the  yellow  cowslip-wine,  the  cooling  claret, 
or  the  sparkling  champagne. 

Perhaps  we  are  all  beginning  to  get  a  little 
hungry,  but  it  is  too  soon  to  breakfast;  so, 
leaving  the  village  of  Grassraere  on  the  right, 
keep  your  eye  on  Helm-crag,  while  we  are 
findinc,  without  seeking,  our  way  up  Easdale. 
Easdale  is  an  arm  of  Grassmere,  and  in  the 
words  of  Mr.  Green  the  artist,  "it  is  in  places 
profusely  wooded,  and  charmingly  sequestered 
among  the  mountains."  Here  you  may  hunt 
the  waterfalls,  in  rainy  weather  easily  run 
down,  but  difhcult  of  detection  in  a  drought. 
Several  pretty  rustic  bridges  cross  and  recross 
the  main  stream  and  its  tributaries;  the  cot- 
tages, in  nook  and  on  hillside,  are  among  the 
most  picturesque  and  engaging  in  the  whole 
country;  the  vale  widens  inio  spacious  and 
noble  meadow-grounds,  on  which  might  suit- 
ably stand  the  mansion  of  any  nobleman  in 
England — as  you  near  its  head,  every  thing 
gets  wild  and  broken,  with  a  slight  touch  of 
dreariness,  and  by  no  very  difficult  ascent,  we 
micrht  reach  Easdale-tarn  in  less  than  an 
hour's  walking  from  Grassmere — a  lonely  and 
impressive  scene,  and  the  haunt  of  the  angler 
almost  as  frequently  as  of  the  shepherd. 

How  far  ran  we  enjoy  the  beauty  of  exter- 
nal nature  under  a  sharp  appetite  for  breakfast 
ordinnerl  On  our  imagination  the  effect  of 
hunger  is  somewhat  singular.  We  no  longer 
regard  sheep,  for  instance,  as  the  fleecy  or  the 
bleating  flock.  Their  wool  or  their  baaing  is 
nothing  to  us — we  think  of  necks,  and  gigofs, 
and  sadillcs  of  mutton ;  and  even  the  lamb 
frisking  on  the  sunny  bank  is  eaten  by  us  in 
the  shape  of  steaks  and  fry.  If  it  is  in  the 
morning,  we  see  no  part  of  the  cow  but  her 
udder,  distilling  richest  milkiness.  Instead  of 
ascending  to  heaven  on  the  smoke  of  a  cottage 
chimney,  we  put  our  arms  round  the  column, 
and  descend  on  the  lid  of  'he  great  pan  pre- 


STROLL  TO  GRASSMERE. 


297 


paring  the  family  breakfast.  Every  interest- 
ing object  in  the  landscape  seems  edible — our 
mouth  waters  all  over  the  vale — as  the  village 
clock  tolls  eight,  we  involuntarily  say  grace, 
and  Price  on  the  Picturesque  gives  way  to 
Meg  Dods's  Cookery. 

Mrs.  Bell  of  the  Red  Lion  Inn,  Grassmere, 
can  give  a  breakfast  with  any  woman  in  Eng- 
land. She  bakes  incomparable  bread — firm, 
close,  compact,  and  white,  thin-crusted,  and 
admirably  raised.  Her  yeast  always  works 
well.  What  butter!  Before  it  a  primrose 
must  hide  its  unyellowed  head.  Then  jam  of 
the  finest  quality,  goose, rasp,  and  strawberry! 
and  as  the  jam  is,  so  are  her  jellies.  Hens 
cackle  that  the  eggs  are  fresh — and  these 
shrimps  were  scraping  the  sand  last  night  in 
the  Whitehaven  sea.  What  glorious  bannocks 
of  barley-meal !  Crisp  wheaten  cakes,  too,  no 
thicker  than  a  wafer.  Do  not,  our  good  sir, 
appropriate  that  cut  of  pickled  salmon ;  it  is 
heavier  than  it  looks,  and  will  weigh  about 
four  pounds.  One  might  live  a  thousand  years, 
yet  never  weary  of  such  mutton-ham.  Virgin 
honey,  indeed !  Let  us  hope  that  the  bees 
were  not  smothered,  but  by  some  gracious  dis- 
ciple of  Bonar  or  Huber  decoyed  from  a  full 
hive  into  an  empty  one,  with  half  the  summer 
and  all  the  autumn  before  them  to  build  and 
saturate  their  new  Comb-Palace.  No  bad 
thing  is  a  cold  pigeon  pie,  especially  of  cushats. 
To  hear  them  cooing  in  the  centre  of  a  wood 
is  one  thing,  and  to  see  them  lying  at  the  bot- 
tom of  a  pie  is  another — which  is  the  better, 
depends  entirely  on  time,  place,  and  circum- 
stance. Well,  a  beef-steak  at  breakfast  is  ra- 
ther startling — but  let  us  tr)^  a  bit  with  these 
fine  ingenuous  youthful  potatoes,  from  a  light 
sandy  soil  on  a  warm  slope.  Next  to  the 
country  clergy,  smugglers  are  the  most  spirit- 
ual of  characters ;  and  we  verily  believe  that 
to  be  "sma'  still."  Our  dear  sir — you  are  in 
orders,  we  believe — will  you  have  the  good- 
ness to  return  thanks  7  Yes,  now  you  may 
ring  the  bell  for  the  bill.  Moderate  indeed  ! 
With  a  day's  work  before  one,  there  is  nothing 
like  the  deep  broad  basis  of  breakfast. 


SECOND  SAUNTER. 

It  is  yet  only  ten  o'clock — and  what  a  mul- 
titude of  thoughts  and  feelings,  sights  and 
sounds,  lights  and  shadows  have  been  ours 
since  sunrise  !  Had  we  been  in  bed,  all  vi'ould 
have  remained  unfelt  and  unknown.  But,  to 
be  sure,  one  dream  might  have  been  worth 
them  all.  Dreams,  however,  when  they  are 
over,  are  gone,  be  they  of  bliss  or  bale,  heaven 
or  the  shades.  No  one  weeps  over  a  dream. 
With  such  tears  no  one  would  sympathize. 
Give  us  reality,  "  the  sober  certainty  of  waking 
bliss,"  and  to  it  memory  shall  cling.  Let  the 
object  of  our  sorrow  belong  to  the  living  world, 
and,  transient  though  it  be,  its  power  may 
be  immortal.  Away  then,  as  of  little  worth, 
all  the  unsubstantial  and  wavering  world  of 
dreams,  and  in  their  place  give  us  the  very 
humblest  humanities,  so  much  the  better  if 
fnjoyed  in  some  beautiful  scene  of  nature  like 
38 


this,  where  all  is  steadfast  but  the  clouds 
whose  very  being  is  change,  and  the  flow  of 
waters  that  have  been  in  motion  since  the 
Flood. 

Ha!  a  splendid  equipage  with  a  coronet. 
And  out  steps,  handed  by  her  elated  husband,  a 
high-born,  beautiful  and  graceful  bride.  They 
are  making  a  tour  of  the  Lakes,  and  the  honey- 
moon hath  not  yet  filled  her  horns.  If  there 
be  indeed  such  a  thing  as  happiness  on  this 
earth,  here  it  is — youth,  elegance,  health,  rank, 
riches,  and  love — all  united  in  ties  that  death 
alone  can  sunder.  How  they  hang  towards 
each  other — the  blissful  pair!  Blind  in  their 
passion  to  all  the  scenery  they  came  to  admire, 
or  beholding  it  but  by  fits  and  snatches,  with 
eyes  that  can  see  only  one  object.  She  hath 
already  learnt  to  forget  father  and  mother, 
and  sister  and  brother,  and  all  the  young  crea- 
tures like  herself — every  one — that  shared  the 
pastimes  and  the  confidence  of  her  virgin 
youthhood.     With  her,  as  with  Genevieve — 

"All  thoughts,  all  passions,  all  delights. 
Whatever  stirs  this  mortal  frame. 
All  are  but  ministers  of  Love, 
And  feed  his  satred  flame!" 

And  will  this  holy  state  of  the  spirit  endure?  No 
— it  will  fade,  and  fade,  and  fade  away,  so  imper- 
ceptibly, so  unconsciously,  (so  like  the  shorten- 
ing of  the  long  summer  days,  that  lose  minute 
after  minute  of  the  light,  till  again  we  hear  the 
yellow  leaves  rustling  in  autumnal  twilight,) 
that  the  heart  within  that  snow-drifted  bosom 
will  know  not  how  great  has  been  the  change, 
till  at  last  it  shall  be  told  the  truth,  and  know 
that  all  mortal  emotion,  however  paradisiacal, 
is  born  to  die. 

Fain  would  we  believe  that  forebodings  like 
these  are,  on  all  such  occasions,  whispered  by 
a  blind  and  ignorant  misanthropy,  and  that  of 
wedded  life  it  may  generally  be  said, 

"O,  happy  state,  where  souls  together  draw. 
Where  love  is  liberty,  and  nature  law  !" 

What  profound  powers  of  aff'ection,  grief,  pity, 
sympathy,  delight,  and  religion  belong,  by  its 
constitution,  to  the  frame  of  every  human  soul ! 
And  if  the  courses  of  life  have  not  greatly 
thwarted  the  divine  dispensations  of  nature, 
will  they  not  all  rise  into  genial  play  within 
bosoms  consecrated  to  each  other's  happiness, 
till  comes  between  them  the  cold  hand  of  death  1 
It  would  seem  that  every  thing  fair  and  good 
must  flourish  under  that  holy  necessity — every 
thing  foul  and  bad  fade  away;  and  that  no 
quarrel  or  unkindness  could  ever  be  between 
pilgrims  travelling  together  through  time  to 
eternity,  whether  their  path  lead  through  an 
Eden  or  a  waste.  Habit  itself  comes  with  hum- 
ble hearts  to  be  gracious  and  benign  ;  they 
who  have  once  loved,  will  not,  for  that  very 
reason,  cease  to  love  ;  memory  shall  brighten 
when  hope  decays;  and  if  the  present  be  no» 
now  so  blissful,  so  thrilling,  so  steeped  in  rap 
lure  as  it  was  in  the  golden  prime,  yet  shall  it 
without  repining  suffice  to  them  whose  thoughts 
borrow  unconsciously  sweet  comforts  from 
the  past  and  future,  and  have  been  taught  by 
mutual  cares  and  sorrows  to  indulge  tempered 
expectations  of  the  be.-.t  earthly  felic'ty.  And 
is  it  not  sol  How  much  tranquillity  and  con  ' 
tentment  in  human  homes  !    Calm  onflowingi 


298 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


of  life  shaded  in  domestic  privacy,  and  seen 
but  at  times  coming  out  into  the  open  light ! 
What  brave  patience  under  poverty  !  What 
beautiful  resignation  in  grief!  Riches  take 
wings  to  themselves  and  flee  away — yet  with- 
out and  within  the  door  there  is  the  decency 
of  a  changed,  not  an  unhappy  lot — The  clouds 
of  adversity  darken  men's  characters  even  as 
if  they  were  the  shadows  of  dishonour,  but  con- 
science quails  not  in  the  gloom — The  well  out 
of  which  humility  hath  her  daily  drink,  is 
nearly  dried  up  to  the  very  spring,  but  she  up- 
braideth  not  Heaven — Children,  tho^e  flowers 
that  make  the  hovel's  earthen  floor  delightful 
as  the  glades  of  Paradise,  wither  in  a  day,  but 
there  is  holy  comfort  in  the  mother's  tears; 
nor  are  the  groans  of  the  fdiher  altogether  with- 
out relief — for  they  ha\f  gone  whither  ihcy 
came,  and  are  blooming  now  in  the  bowers  of 
Heaven. 

Reverse  the  picture — and  tremble  for  the 
fate  of  those  whom  God  hath  made  one,  and 
whom  no  man  must  put  asunder.  In  common 
natures,  what  hot  and  sensual  pas.sions,  whose 
gratification  ends  in  indiflerence,  disgust,  loath- 
ing, or  hatred  !  What  a  power  of  misery,  from 
fretting  to  madness,  lies  in  that  mean  but 
mighty  word — Temper!  The  face,  to  whose 
meek  beauty  smiles  seemed  native  during  the 
days  of  virgin  love,  shows  now  but  a  sneer,  a 
scowl,  a  frown,  or  a  glare  of  scorn.  The  shape 
of  those  features  is  still  fine — thf  eye  of  the 
gazelle — the  Grecian  nose  and  firehead — the 
ivory  teeth,  so  small  and  regular — and  thin 
line  of  ruby  lips  breathing  Circassian  luxury — 
the  snow-drifts  of  the  bosom  still  heave  there 
— a  lovelier  waist  Apollo  never  encircled  step- 
ping from  the  chariot  of  the  sun — nor  limbs 
more  graceful  did  ever  Diana  veil  beneath  the 
shadows  of  Mount  Latmos.  But  she  is  a  fiend 
-^a  devil  incarnate,  and  the  sovereign  beauty 
of  three  counties  has  made  your  house  a  lull. 

But  suppojio  that  you  have  had  the  sense 
and  sagacity  to  marry  a  homely  wife — or  one 
comely  at  the  best — nay,  even  that  you  have 
sought  to  secure  your  peace  by  admitted  ug- 
liness— or  wedded  a  woman  whom  all  tongues 
call — plain  ;  then  may  an  insurance-ticket,  in- 
deed, flame  like  the  sun  in  miniature  on  the 
front  of  your  house — but  what  Joint-Stock 
Company  can  undertake  to  repay  the  loss  in- 
curred by  the  perpetual  singeini;  of  the  smoul- 
dering flames  of  strife,  that  blaze  up  without 
■warning  at  bed  and  board,  and  keep  you  in  an 
everlasting  alarm  of  fire?  We  defy  you  to 
utter  the  most  glaring  truth  ihat  shall  not  be 
instantly  contradicted.  The  most  rational  pro- 
posals for  a  day  or  hour  of  pleasure,  at  home 
or  abroad,  are  on  the  nail  negatived  as  absurd. 
If  you  dine  at  horfie  every  day  for  a  month,  she 
wonder,  why  nobody  asks  you  out,  and  fears 
Tou  take  no  trouble  to  make  yourself  agreeable. 
If  you  dine  from  home  one  day  in  a  month, 
then  are  you  oharced  with  being  addicted  to 
tavern-clubs.  Children  are  perpetual  bones  of 
contention — there  is  hatred  and  sorrow  in 
house-bills — rent  and  taxes  are  productive  of 
endless  grievances  ;  and  although  education  be 
an  excellent  thing — indeed  quite  a  fortune  in 
itself— especially  to  a  poor  Scotsman  going  to 
England,  where  all  the  people  arc  barbarous — 


yet  is  it  irritatingl)'  expensive  when  a  great 
Northern  Nursery  sends  out  its  hordes,  and 
gawky  ho)'dens  and  hobble-te-hoys  are  getting 
themselves  accomplished  in  the  foreign  lan- 
guages, music,  drawing,  geography,  the  use  of 
the  globes,  and  the  dumb-bells. 

"Let  observation,  with  extensive  view. 
Survey  mankind  from  China  to  Peru." 

(Two  bad  lines  by  the  way,  though  written  by 
Dr.  Johnson) — and  observation  will  find  the 
literature  of  all  countries  filled  with  sarcasms 
against  the  marriage-life.  Our  old  Scottish 
songs  and  ballads,  especially,  delight  in  repre- 
senting it  as  a  state  of  ludicrous  misery  and 
discomfort.  There  is  little  or  no  talk  of  horns 
— the  dilemma  of  English  wit ;  but  every  in- 
dividual moment  of  every  individual  minute, 
of  every  individual  hour,  of  every  individual 
day,  and  so  on,  has  its  peculiar,  appropri- 
ate, characteristic,  and  incurable  wretchedness. 
Yet  the  delightful  thing  is,  that  in  spite  of  all 
this  jeering  and  gibing,  and  grinning  and  hiss- 
ing, and  pointing  with  the  finger — marrying 
and  giving  in  marriage,  births  and  christen- 
ings, continue  their  career  of  prosperity;  and 
the  legitimate  population  doubles  itself  some- 
where about  ever)'  thirty-five  years.  Single 
houses  rise  out  of  the  earth — tlouble  houses 
become  villages — villages  towns — towns  cities, 
and  our  Metropolis  is  itself  a  world  ! 

While  the  lyrical  poetrj*  of  Scotland  is  thus 
rife  with  reproach  against  wedlock,  it  is  equal- 
ly rife  with  panegyric  on  the  lender  passion 
that  leads  into  its  toils.  In  one  page  you 
shudder  in  a  cold  sweat  over  the  mean  miseries 
of  ihe  poor  "  gudeman  ;"  in  the  next  you  see, 
uncojiscious  of  the  same  approaching  destiny, 
the  enamoured  youth  lying  on  his  Marj''s 
bosom  beneath  the  milkwhitc  thorn.  The 
pastoral  pipe  is  tuned  under  a  fate  that  hurries 
on  all  li\ing  creatures  to  love;  and  not  one 
lawful  embrace  is  shunned  from  any  other 
fears  than  those  which  themselves  spring  up 
in  the  poor  man's  thoughlful  heart.  The 
wicked  lictray,  and  the  weak  fall — bitter  tears 
are  shed  at  midnight  from  eyes  once  bright  as 
the  d;iy — fair  faces  never  smile  again,  and 
many  a  hut  has  its  broken  heart — hope  comes 
and  goes,  finally  vanquishing,  or  yielding  to 
despair — crowned  passion  dies  the  sated  death, 
or,  with  increase  of  appetite,  grows  by  what 
it  feeds  on — wide,  but  unseen,  over  all  the 
regions  of  the  land,  are  cheated  hopes,  vain 
desires,  gnawing  jealousy,  dispirited  fear,  and 
swarthy-souled  revenge — beseechings,  seduc- 
tions, suicides,  and  insanities — and  all,  all 
spring  from  the  root  of  Love;  yet  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth  call  the  Tree  blest,  and 
long  as  time  endures,  will  continue  to  flock 
thither  panting  to  devour  the  fruiiage,  of  which 
every  other  golden  globe  is  poison  and  death. 

Smile  away  then,  with  all  thy  most  irresisti- 
ble blandishments,  thou  young  and  happy 
Bride  !  What  business  have  we  to  prophesy 
bedimming  tears  to  those  resplendent  eyesi  or 
lhat  the  talisman  of  that  witching  smile  can 
ever  lose  its  magic?  Are  not  the  high-bom 
daughters  of  England  also  the  high-souled* 
.\nd  hath  not  honour  and  virtue,  and  charity 
and  religion,  guarded  for  centuries  the  lofty 
line  of  thy  pure  and  unpolluted  blood?     Joy 


STROLL  TO  GRASSMERE. 


299 


ful,  therefore,  mayst  tnou  be,  as  the  dove  in 
the  sunshine  on  the  Tower-top — and  as  the 
dove  serene,  when  she  sitteth  on  her  nest 
■within  the  yew-tree's  gloom,  far  within  the 
wood ! 

Passing  from  our  episode,  let  us  say  that 
we  are  too  well  acquainted  with  your  taste, 
feeling,  and  judgment,  to  tell  you  on  what  ob- 
jects to  gaze  or  glance,  in  such  a  scene  as  the 
vale  and  village  of  Grassmere.  Of  yourselves 
you  will  find  out  the  nooks  and  corners  from 
which  the  pretty  whitewashed  and  flowering 
cottages  do  most  picturesquely  combine  with 
each  other,  and  with  the  hills,  and  groves,  and 
old  church-tower.  Without  our  guiding  hand 
will  you  ascend  knoll  and  eminence,  be  there 
pathway  or  no  pathway,  and  discover  for  your- 
selves new  Lake-Landscapes.  Led  by  your 
own  sweet  and  idle,  chaste  and  noble  fkncies, 
you  will  disappear,  single,  or  in  pairs  and 
parties,  into  little  woody  wildernesses,  where 
you  will  see  nothing  but  ground-flowers  and  a 
glimmering  contiguity  of  shade.  Solitude  some- 
limes,  you  know,  is  best  society,  and  short 
retirement  urges  sweet  return.  Various  travels 
or  voyages  of  discovery  may  be  undertaken, 
and  their  grand  object  attained  in  little  more 
than  an  hour.  The  sudden  whirr  of  a  cushat 
is  an  incident,  or  the  leaping  of  a  lamb  among 
the  broom.  In  the  quiet  of  nature,  matchless 
seems  the  music  of  the  milkmaid's  song — and 
of  the  hearty  laugh  of  the  haymakers,  cross- 
ing the  meadow  in  rows,  how  sweet  the  cheer- 
ful echo  from  Helm-crag!  Grassmere  appears 
by  far  the  most  beautiful  place  in  all  the  Lake- 
country.  You  buy  a  field — build  a  cottage — 
and  in  imagination  lie  (for  they  are  too  short 
to  enable  you  to  sit)  beneath  the  shadow  of 
your  own  trees ! 

In  an  English  village — highland  or  lowland 
— seldom  is  there  any  spot  so  beautiful  as  the 
churchyard.  That  of  Grassmere  is  especially 
so,  with  the  pensive  shadows  of  the  old  church- 
tower  settling  over  its  cheerful  graves.  A)^ 
its  cheerful  graves !  Startle  not  at  the  word 
as  too  strong — for  the  pigeons  are  cooing  in 
belfrj',  the  stream  is  murmuring  round  the 
mossy  churchyard  wall,  a  few  lambs  are  lying 
on  the  mounds,  and  flowers  laughing  in  the 
sunshine  over  the  cells  of  the  dead.  But  hark  ! 
the  bell  tolls — one — one — one — a  funeral  knell, 
speaking  not  of  time,  but  of  eternity!  To-day 
there  is  to  be  a  burial — and  close  to  the  wall 
of  the  Tower  you  see  the  new-dug  grave. 

Hush  !  The  sound  of  singing  voices  in  yon- 
der wood,  deadened  by  the  weight  of  umbrage  ! 
Now  it  issues  forth  into  the  clear  air,  and  now 
all  is  silence — but  the  pause  speaks  of  death. 
Again  the  melancholy  swell  ascends  the  sky — 
and  then  comes  slowly  along  the  funeral  pro- 
cession, the  coffin  borne  aloft,  and  the  mourn- 
ers all  in  white;  for  it  is  a  virgin  who  is 
carried  to  her  last  home.  Let  every  head  be 
reverently  uncovered  while  the  psalm  enters 
the  gate,  and  the  bier  is  borne  for  holy  rites 
along  the  chancel  of  the  church,  and  laid 
down  close  to  the  altar.  A  smothered  sobbing 
disturbeth  not  the  service — 'tis  a  human  spirit 
breathing  in  accordance  with  the  divine.  Mor- 
tals weeping  for  the  immortal — Earth's  pas- 
sions cleaving  to  one  who  is  now  in  heaven. 


Was  she  one  flower  of  many,  and  singled 
out  by  death's  unsparing  finger  from  a  wreath 
of  beauty,  whose  remaining  blossoms  seem 
now  to  have  lost  all  their  fragrance  and  all 
their  brightness  1  Or  was  she  the  sole  delight 
of  her  grayhaired  parents'  eyes,  and  is  the  voice 
of  joy  extinguished  in  their  low-roofed  home 
for  everl  Had  her  loveliness  been  beloved, 
and  had  her  innocent  hopes  anticipated  the 
bridal-day,  nor  her  heart,  whose  beatings  were 
numbered,  ever  feared  that  narrow  bed?  All 
that  we  know  is  her  name  and  age — you  see 
them  glittering  on  her  cofiin — "  Anabella  Irvine, 
aged  xix  years !" 

The  day  seems  something  dim,  now  that  we 
are  all  on  our  way  back  to  Ambleside ;  and, 
although  the  clouds  are  neither  heavier  nor 
more  nunnerous  than  before,  somehow  or  other 
the  sun  is  a  little  obscured.  We  must  not  in- 
dulge too  long  in  a  mournful  mood — yet  let  us 
all  sit  down  under  the  shadow  of  this  grove  of 
sycamores,  overshadowing  this  reedy  bay  of 
Rydal-mere,  and  listen  to  a  Tale  of  Tears. 

Many  a  tame  tradition,  embalmed  in  a  few 
pathetic  verses,  lives  for  ages,  while  the  mem- 
ory of  the  most  affecting  incidents,  to  which 
genius  has  allied  no  general  emotion,  fades 
like  the  mist,  and  leaves  heart-rending  griefs 
undeplored.  Elegies  and  dirges  might  indeed 
have  well  been  sung  amidst  the  green  ruins 
of  yonder  Cottage,  that  looks  now  almost  like 
a  fallen  wall — at  best,  the  remnants  of  a  cattle- 
shed  shaken  down  by  the  storm. 

Thirty  years  ago — how  short  a  time  in  na- 
tional history — how  long  in  that  of  private 
sorrows ! — all  tongues  were  speaking  of  the 
death  that  there  befell,  and  to  have  seen  the 
weeping,  you  would  have  thought  that  the 
funeral  could  never  have  been  forgotten.  But 
stop  now  the  shepherd  on  the  hill,  and  ask  him 
who  lived  in  that  nook,  and  chance  is  he 
knows  not  even  their  name,  much  less  the 
story  of  their  afflictions.  It  was  inhabited  by 
Allan  Fleming,  his  wife,  and  an  only  child, 
known  familiarly  in  her  own  small  world  by 
the  name  of  Lucy  of  the  Fold.  In  almost 
every  district  among  the  mountains,  there  is 
its  peculiar  pride — someone  creature  to  whom 
nature  has  been  especially  kind,  and  whose 
personal  beauty,  sweetness  of  disposition,  and 
felt  superiority  of  mind  and  manner,  single  her 
out,  unconsciously,  as  an  object  of  attraction 
and  praise,  making  her  the  May-day  Queen  of 
the  unending  year.  Such  a  darling  was  Lucy 
Fleming  ere  she  had  finished  her  thirteenth 
year;  and  strangers,  who  had  heard  tell  of  her 
loveliness,  often  dropt  in,  as  if  by  accident,  to 
see  the  Beauty  of  Rydal-mere.  Her  parents 
rejoiced  in  their  child;  nor  was  there  any  rea- 
son why  they  should  dislike  the  expression  of 
delight  and  wonder  with  which  so  many  re- 
garded her.  Shy  was  she  as  a  woodland  bird, 
but  as  fond  too  of  her  nest;  and,  when  there 
was  nothing  near  to  disturb  her,  her  life  was 
almost  a  perpetual  hymn.  From  joy  to  sad- 
ness, and  from  sadness  to  joy;  from  silence  to 
song,  and  from  song  to  silence;  from  stillness 
like  that  of  the  butterfly  on  the  flower,  to  mo- 
tion like  that  of  the  same  creature  wavering 
in  the  sunshine  over  the  wood-top— was  to 
Lucy  as  welcome  a  change  as  the  change  of 


300 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


lights  and  shadows,  breezes  and  calms,  in  the 
mountain-country  of  her  birth. 

One  summer  day,  a  youthful  stranger  ap- 
peared at  the  door  of  the  house,  and  after  an 
hour's  stay,  during  which  Lucy  was  from 
home,  asked  if  they  would  let  him  have  lodg- 
ing with  them  for  a  few  months — a  single  room 
for  bed  and  books,  and  that  he  would  take  his 
meals  with  the  family.  Enthusiastic  boy!  to 
him  poetry  had  been  the  light  of  life,  nor  did 
ever  creature  of  poetry  belong  more  entirely 
than  he  to  the  world  of  imagination.  He  had 
come  into  the  free  mountain  region  from  the 
confinement  of  college-walls,  and  his  spirit 
expanded  within  him  like  a  rainbow.  No 
eyes  had  he  for  realities — all  nature  was  seen 
in  the  light  of  genius — not  a  single  object  at 
sunrise  and  sunset  the  same.  All  was  beauti- 
ful within  the  circle  of  the  green  hill-tops, 
whether  shrouded  in  the  soft  mists  or  clearly 
outlined  in  a  cloudless  sky.  Home,  friends, 
colleges,  cities — all  sunk  away  into  oblivion, 
and  Hahiit  HowAim  felt  as  if  wafted  off  on  the 
wings  of  a  spirit,  and  set  down  in  a  land  be- 
yond the  sea,  foreign  to  all  he  had  before  ex- 
perienced, yet  in  its  perfect  and  endless  beauty 
appealing  every  hour  more  tenderly  and 
strongly  to  a  spirit  awakened  to  new  power, 
and  revelling  in  new  emotion.  In  that  cottage 
he  took  up  his  abode.  In  a  few  weeks  came  a 
library  of  books  in  all  languages;  and  there 
was  much  wondering  talk  over  all  the  country- 
side about  the  mysterious  young  stranger  who 
now  lived  at  the  Fold. 

Every  day — and,  when  he  chose  to  absent 
himself  from  his  haunts  among  the  hills,  every 
hour  was  Lucy  before  the  young  poet's  eyes — 
and  every  hour  did  her  beauty  wax  more  beau- 
tiful in  his  imagination.  Wlio  Mr.  Howard 
was,  or  even  if  that  were  indeed  his  real  name, 
no  one  knew;  but  none  doubted  that  he  was 
of  gentle  birth,  and  all  with  whom  he  had  ever 
conversed  in  his  elegant  amenity,  could  have 
sworn  that  a  youth  so  bland  and  free,  and  with 
such  a  voice,  and  such  eyes,  would  noi  have 
injured  the  humblest  of  God's  creatures,  much 
less  such  a  creature  as  Lucy  of  the  Fold.  It 
was  indeed  even  so— for,  before  the  long  sum- 
mer days  were  gone,  he  who  had  never  had  a 
sister,  loved  her  even  as  if  she  had  slept  on  the 
same  maternal  bosom.  Father  or  mother  he 
now  had  none — indeed,  scarcely  one  near  re- 
lation— although  he  was  rich  in  this  world's 
riches,  but  in  them  poor  in  comparison  with 
the  noble  endowments  that  nature  had  lavished 
upon  his  mind.  His  guardians  took  little  heed 
of  the  splendid  but  wayward  youlh — and  knew 
not  now  whither  his  fancies  had  carried  him, 
were  it  even  to  some  savage  land.  Thus,  the 
Fold  became  to  him  the  one  dearest  roof  under 
the  roof  of  heaven.  All  the  simple  on-goings 
of  that  humble  home,  love  and  imagination 
beautified  into  poetr}';  and  all  the  roush  or 
coarser  edges  of  lowly  life,  were  softened  I 
away  in  the  light  of  genius  that  transmuted  ! 
every  thing  on  which  it  fell;  while  all  the  si- 
lent intimations  which  nature  gave  there  of 
her  primal  sympathies,  in  the  hut  as  fine  and 
forceful  as  in  the  hall,  showed  to  his  excited 
spirit  pre-eminently  lovely,  and  chained  it  to  , 


the  hearth  around  which  was  read  the'lhoni- 
ing  and  the  evening  prayer. 

What  wild  schemes  does  not  love  imagine, 
and  in  the  face  of  verj'  impossibility  achieve ! 
"  I  will  take  Lucy  to  myself,  if  it  should  be  in 
place  of  all  the  world.  I  will  myself  shed  light 
over  her  being,  till  in  a  new  spring  it  shall  be 
adorned  with  living  flowers  that  fade  not  away, 
perennial  and  self-renewed.  In  a  few  years 
the  bright  docile  creature  will  have  the  soul 
of  a  very  angel — and  then,  before  God  and  at 
his  holy  altar,  mine  shall  she  become  for  ever 
— here  and  hereafter — in  this  paradise  of  earth, 
and,  if  more  celestial  be,  in  the  paradise  of 
heaven." 

Thus  two  summers  and  two  winters  wheeled 
away  into  the  past ;  and  in  the  change,  imper- 
ceptible from  day  to  day,  but  glorious  at  last, 
wrought  on  Lucy's  nature  by  communication 
with  one  so  prodigally  endowed,  scarcely  could 
her  parents  believe  it  was  their  same  child, 
except  that  she  was  dutiful  as  before,  as  affec- 
tionate, and  as  fond  of  all  the  familiar  objects, 
dead  or  living,  round  and  about  her  birth- 
place. She  had  now  grown  to  woman's  sta- 
ture— tall,  though  she  scarcely  seemed  so 
except  when  among  her  playmates  ;  and  in  her 
maturing  loveliness,  fulfilling,  and  far  more 
than  fulfilling  the  fair  promise  of  her  child- 
hood. Never  once  had  the  young  stranger — 
stranger  no  more — spoken  to  daughter,  father, 
or  mother,  of  his  love.  Indeed,  for  all  that  he 
felt  towards  Lucy  there  must  have  been  some 
other  word  than  love.  Tenderness,  which  was 
almost  pity — an  affection  that  was  oAen  sad — 
wonder  at  her  surpassing  beauty,  nor  less  at 
her  unconsciousness  of  its  power — admiration 
of  her  spiritual  qualities,  that  ever  rose  up  to 
meet  instruction  as  if  already  f>rmed — and 
that  heart-throbbing  that  stirs  the  blood  of  youth 
when  the  innocent  eyes  it  loves  are  beaming 
in  the  twilight  through  smiles  or  through  tears, 
— these,  and  a  thousand  other  feelings,  and 
above  all,  the  creative  faculty  of  a  poet's  soul, 
now  constituted  his  very  being  when  Lucy 
was  in  presence,  nor  forsook  him  when  he  was 
alone  among  the  mountains. 

At  last  it  was  known  through  the  country 
that  Mr.  Howard — the  stranger,  the  scholar,  the 
poet,  the  elegant  gentleman,  of  whom  nobody 
knew  much,  but  whom  every  body  loved,  and 
whose  father  must  at  the  least  have  been  a 
lord,  was  going — in  a  year  or  less — to  marry 
the  daughter  of  Allan  Fleming — Lucy  of  the 
Fold.  Oh,  grief  and  shame  to  the  parents — if 
still  living — of  the  noble  Boy !  Oh,  sorrow  for 
himself  when  his  passion  dies — when  the 
dream  is  dissolved — and  when,  in  place  of  the 
angel  of  light  who  now  moves  before  him,  he 
sees  only  a  child  of  earth,  lowly-born,  and  long 
rudely  bred — a  being  only  fair  as  many  others 
are  fair,  sister  in  her  simplicity  to  maidens  no 
less  pleasing  than  she,  and  partaking  of  many 
weaknesses,  frailties,  and  faults  now  unknown 
to  herself  in  her  happiness,  and  to  him  in  his 
love !  Was  there  no  one  to  rescue  them  from 
such  a  fate — froin  a  few  months  of  imaginary 
bliss,  and  from  many  years  of  real  bale  ?  How- 
could  such  a  man  as  Allan  Fleming  be  so  in- 
fatuated as  sell  his  child  to  fickle  youth,  who 


STROLL  TO  GRASSMERE. 


m 


would  soon  desert  her  broken-hearted  ?  Yet 
kind  thoughts,  wishes,  hopes,  and  beliefs  pre- 
vailed; nor  were  there  wanting  stories  of  the 
olden  time,  of  low-born  maidens  married  to 
youths  of  high  estate,  and  raised  from  hut  to 
hall,  becoming  mothers  of  a  lordly  line  of  sons, 
that  were  counsellors  to  Kings  and  Princes. 

In  Spring,  Mr.  Howard  went  away  for  a  few 
months — it  was  said  to  the  great  city — and  on 
his  return  at  midsummer,  Lucy  was  to  be  his 
bride.  They  parted  with  a  few  peaceful  tears, 
and  though  absent  were  still  together.  And 
now  a  letter  came,  saying  that  before  another 
Sabbath  he  would  be  at  the  Fold.  A  few  fields 
in  Easedale,  long  mortgaged  beyond  their  fee- 
simple  by  the  hard-working  statesman  from 
whom  they  reluctantly  were  passing  away,  had 
meanwhile  been  purchased  by  Mr.  Howard, 
and  in  that  cottage  they  were  to  abide,  till  they 
had  built  for  themselves  a  house  a  little  further 
up  the  side  of  the  silvan  hill,  below  the  shadow 
of  Helm-crag.  Lucy  saw  the  Sabbath  of  his 
return  and  its  golden  sun,  but  it  was  in  her 
mind's  eye  only ;  for  ere  it  was  to  descend 
behind  the  hills,  she  was  not  to  be  among  the 
number  of  living  things. 

Up  Forest-UUswater  the  youth  had  come  by 
the  light  of  the  setting  sun ;  and  as  he  crossed 
the  mountains  to  Grassmere  by  the  majestic 
pass  of  the  Hawse,  still  as  every  new  star 
arose  in  heaven,  with  it  arose  as  lustrous  a 
new  emotion  from  the  bosom  of  his  betrothed. 
The  midnight  hour  had  been  fixed  for  his  re- 
turn to  the  Fold ;  and  as  he  reached  the  cliffs 
above  White-moss,  according  to  agreement  a 
light  was  burning  in  the  low  window,  the  very 
planet  of  love.  It  seemed  to  shed  a  bright 
serenity  over  all  the  vale,  and  the  moon-glit- 
tering waters  of  Rydal-mere  were  as  an  image 
of  life,  pure,  lonely,  undisturbed,  and  at  the 
pensive  hour  how  profound!  "Blessing  and 
praise  be  to  the  gracious  God  !  who  framed  my 
spirit  so  to  delight  in  his  beautiful  and  glorious 
creation — blessing  and  praise  to  the  Holy  One, 
for  the  boon  of  my  Lucy's  innocent  and  reli- 
gious love  !"  Prayers  crowded  fast  into  his 
soul,  and  tears  of  joy  fell  from  his  eyes,  as  he 
stood  at  the  threshold,  almost  afraid  in  the 
trembling  of  life-deep  aflfection  to  meet  her  first 
embrace. 

In  the  silence,  sobs  and  sighs,  and  one  or  two 
long  deep  groans  !  Then  in  another  moment,  he 
saw,  through  the  open  door  of  the  room  where 
Lucy  used  to  sleep,  several  figures  moving  to 
and  fro  in  the  light,  and  one  figure  upon  its 
knees,  who  else  "could  it  be  but  her  father ! 
Unnoticed  he  became  one  of  the  pale-faced 
company — and  there  he  beheld  her  on  her  bed, 
mute  and  motionless,  her  face  covered  with  a 
deplorable  beauty — eyes  closed,  and  her  hands 
clasped  upon  her  breast!  "  Dead, dead,  dead !" 
muttered  in  his  ringing  ears  a  voice  from  the 
tombs,  and  he  fell  down  in  the  midst  of  them 
with  great  violence  upon  the  floor. 

Encircled  with  arms  that  lay  round  him 
softer  and  silkier  far  than  flower-wreaths  on 
the  neck  of  a  child  who  has  laid  him  down 
from  play,  was  he  when  he  awoke  from  that  fit 
— lying  even  on  his  own  maiden's  bed,  and 
within  her  very  bosom,  that  beat  yet,  although 
soon  about  to  beat  no  more.    At  that  blest 


awakening  moment,  he  might  have  thought  he 
saw  the  first  glimpse  of  light  of  the  morning 
after  his  marriage-day  ;  for  her  face  was  turn- 
ed towards  his  breast,  and  with  her  faint 
breathings  he  felt  the  touch  of  tears.  Not  tears 
alone  now  bedimmed  those  eyes,  for  tears  he 
could  have  kissed  away;  but  the  blue  lids  were 
heavy  with  something  that  was  not  slumber — 
the  orbs  themselves  were  scarcely  visible — and 
her  voice — it  was  gone,  to  be  heard  never 
again,  till  in  the  choir  of  white-robed  spirits 
that  sing  at  the  right  hand  of  God. 

Yet,  no  one  doubted  that  she  knew  him— • 
him  who  had  dropt  down,  like  a  superior  being, 
from  another  sphere,  on  the  innocence  of  her 
simple  childhood — had  taught  her  to  know  so 
much  of  her  own  soul — to  love  her  parents 
with  a  profounder  and  more  holy  love — to  see, 
in  characters  more  divine.  Heaven's  promises 
of  forgiveness  to  every  contrite  heart — and  a 
life  of  perfect  blessedness  beyond  death  and  the 
grave.  A  smile  that  shone  over  her  face  the 
moment  that  she  had  been  brought  to  know 
that  he  had  come  at  last,  and  was  nigh  at  hand 
— and  that  never  left  it  while  her  bosom  moved 
— no — not  for  all  the  three  days  and  nights 
that  he  continued  to  sit  beside  the  corpse,  when 
father  and  mother  were  forgetting  their  cares 
in  sleep — that  smile  told  all  who  stood  around, 
watching  her  departure,  neighbour,  friend, 
priest,  parent,  and  him  the  suddenly  distracted 
and  desolate,  that  in  the  very  moment  of  expi- 
ration, she  knew  him  well,  and  was  recom- 
mending him  and  his  afflictions  to  the  pity  of 
One  who  died  to  save  sinners. 

Three  days  and  three  nights,  we  have  said,  did 
he  sit  beside  her,  who  so  soon  was  to  have  been 
his  bride — and  come  or  go  who  would  into  the 
room,  he  saw  them  not — his  sight  was  fixed  on 
the  winding-sheet,  eyeing  it  without  a  single 
tear  from  feet  to  forehead,  and  sometimes  look- 
ing up  to  heaven.  As  men  forgotten  in  dun- 
geons have  lived  miserably  long  without  food, 
so  did  he — and  so  he  would  have  done,  on  and 
on  to  the  most  far-ofl^  funeral  day.  From  that 
one  chair,  close  to  the  bedside,  he  never  rose. 
Night  after  night,  when  all  the  vale  was 
hushed,  he  never  slept.  Through  one  of  the 
midnights  there  had  been  a  great  thunder- 
storm, the  lightning  smiting  a  cliflT  close  to  the 
cottage ;  but  it  seemed  that  he  heard  it  not— 
and  during  the  floods  of  next  day,  to  him  the 
roaring  vale  was  silent.  On  the  morning  of 
the  funeral,  the  old  people — for  now  they 
seemed  to  be  old — wept  to  see  him  sitting  still 
beside  their  dead  child ;  for  each  of  the  few 
remaining  hours  had  now  its  own  sad  office, 
and  a  man  had  come  to  nail  down  the  coffin. 
Three  black  specks  suddenly  alighted  on  the 
face  of  the  corpse — and  then  off"— and  on — and 
away — and  returning — was  heard  the  buzzing 
of  large  flies,  attracted  by  beauty  in  its  cor- 
ruption. "  Ha— ha !"  starting  up,  he  cried  in 
horror — "What  birds  of  prey  are  these,  whom 
Satan  hath  sent  to  devour  the  corpse  1"  He 
became  stricken  with  a  sort  of  palsy — and, 
being  led  out  to  the  open  air,  was  laid  down, 
seemingly  as  dead  as  her  within,  on  the  green 
daisied  turf,  where,  beneath  the  shadow  of  the 
sycamore,  they  had  so  often  sat,  building  up 
beautiful  visions  of  a  long  blissful  life. 
3C 


302 


RECREATIONS  OF   CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


The  company  assembled,  but  not  before  his 
eyes — the  bier  was  lifted  up  and  moved  away 
down  the  silvan  slope,  and  away  round  the 
head  of  the  Lake,  and  over  the  wooden  bridge, 
accompanied,  here  and  there,  as  it  passed  the 
wayside  houses  on  the  road  to  Grassmere,  by 
the  sound  of  psalms — but  he  saw — he  heard 
not ;  when  the  last  sound  of  the  spade  re- 
bounded from  the  smooth  arch  of  the  grave,  he 
was  not  by — but  all  the  while  he  was  lying 
where  they  left  him,  with  one  or  two  pitying 
dalesmen  at  his  head  and  feet.  When  he 
awoke  again  and  rose  up,  the  cottage  of  the 
Fold  was  as  if  she  had  never  been  born — for 
she  had  vanished  for  ever  and  aye,  and  her 
sixteen  years'  smiling  life  was  all  extinguished 
in  the  dust. 

Weeks  and  months  passed  on,  and  still 
there  was  a  vacant  wildness  in  his  eyes,  and  a 
mortal  ghastliness  all  over  his  face,  inexpres- 
sive of  a  reasonable  soul.  It  scarcely  seemed 
that  he  knew  where  he  was,  or  in  what  pari  of 
the  earth,  yet,  when  left  by  himself,  he  never 
sought  to  move  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the 
Fold.  During  the  first  faint  glimmerings  of 
returning  reason,  he  would  utter  her  name, 
over  and  over  many  times,  with  a  mournful 
voice,  but  still  he  knew  not  that  she  was  dead 
—then  he  began  to  caution  them  all  to  tread 
softly,  for  that  sleep  had  fallen  upon  her,  and 
her  fever  in  its  blessed  balm  might  abate — 


then  with  groans,  too  affecting  to  be  borne  by 
those  who  heard  them,  he  would  ask  why, 
since  she  was  dead,  God  had  the  cruelty  to 
keep  him,  her  husband,  in  hfe  ;  and  finally  and 
last  of  all,  he  imagined  himself  in  Grassmere 
Churchyard,  and  clasping  a  little  mound  on 
the  green,  which  it  was  evident  he  thought  was 
her  grave,  he  wept  over  it  for  hours  and  hours, 
and  kissed  it,  and  placed  a  stone  at  its  head, 
and  sometimes  all  at  once  broke  out  into  fits 
of  laughter,  till  the  hideous  fainting-fits  return- 
ed, and  after  long  convulsions  left  him  l3'ing 
as  if  stone-dead.  As  for  his  bodily  frame, 
when  Lucy's  father  lifted  it  up  in  his  arms, 
little  heavier  was  it  than  a  bundle  of  withered 
fern.  Nobody  supposed  that  one  so  miserably 
attenuated  and  ghost-like  could  for  many  days 
be  alive — yet  nut  till  the  earth  had  thrice  re- 
volved round  the  sun,  did  that  body  die,  and 
then  it  was  buried  far  a  way  from  the  Fold, 
the  banks  of  Rydal-water,  and  the  sweet  moun- 
tains of  Westmoreland ;  for  after  passing  like 
a  shadow  through  many  foreign  lands,  he 
ceased  his  pilgrimage  in  Palestine,  even  be- 
neath the  shadow  of  Mount  Sion,  and  was  laid, 
with  a  lock  of  hair — which,  from  the  place  it 
held,  strangers  knew  to  have  belonged  to  one 
dearly  beloved — close  to  his  heart,  on  which  it 
had  lain  so  long,  and  was  to  moulder  away  in 
darkness  together,  by  Chnstiaa  hands  and  in 
a  Christian  sepulchre. 


i^'ENVOY. 


308 


I/ENVOY. 


Pehiodicai  literature  is  a  type  of  many  of 
the  most  beautiful  things  and  interesting  events 
in  nature ;  or  say,  rather,  that  they  are  types 
of  it — the  Flowers  and  the  Stars.  As  to 
Flowers,  they  are  the  prettiest  periodicals  ever 
published  in  folio — the  leaves  are  wire-wove 
and  hot-pressed  by  Nature's  self;  their  cir- 
culation is  wide  overall  the  land;  from  castle 
to  cottage  they  are  regularly  taken  in ;  as  old 
age  bends  over  them,  his  youth  is  renewed  ; 
and  you  see  childhood  poring  upon  them 
pressed  close  to  its  very  bosom.  Some  of  them 
are  ephemeral — their  contents  are  exhaled  be- 
tween the  rising  and  setting  sun.  Once  a- 
week  others  break  through  their  green,  pink, 
or  crimson  cover;  and  how  delightful,  on  the 
seventh  day,  smiles  in  the  sunshine  the  Sab- 
bath Flower — a  Sunday  publication  perused 
■without  blame  by  the  most  religious — even  be- 
fore morning  prayer !  Each  month,  indeed, 
throughout  the  whole  year,  has  its  own  Flower 
periodical.  Some  are  annual,  some  biennial, 
some  triennial,  and  there  are  perennials  that 
seem  to  live  for  ever — and  yet  are  still  periodi- 
cal— though  our  love  will  not  allow  us  to  know 
when  they  die,  and  phocnix-like  reappear  from 
their  own  ashes.  So  much  for  Flowers — typify- 
ing or  typified  ;— 'leaves  emblematical  of  pages 
— buds  of  binding — dew-veils  of  covers — and 
the  wafting  away  of  bloom  and  fragrance  like 
llie  dissemination  of  fine  feelings,  bright  fan- 
cies, and  winged  thoughts. 

The  Flowers  are  the  periodicals  of  the  earth 
— the  Stars  are  the  periodicals  of  heaven. 
With  what  unfailing  regularity  do  the  numbers 
issue  forth!  Hesperus  and  Lucifer!  ye  are 
one  concern.  The  Pole-star  is  studied  by  all 
nations.  How  popular  the  poetry  of  the  Moon! 
On  what  subject  does  not  the  Sun  throw  light  1 
No  fear  of  hurting  your  eyes  by  reading  that 
fine  clear  large  type  on  that  softened  page.  As 
you  turn  them  over,  one  blue,  another  yellow, 
and  another  green,  all  are  alike  delightful  to 
the  pupil,  dear  as  the  very  apple  of  his  eye. 
Yes,  the  great  Periodical  Press  of  heaven  is 
unceasingly  at  work — night  and  day;  the  only 
free  power  all  over  the  world — 'tis  indeed  like 
the  air  we  breathe — if  we  have  it  not,  we  die. 

Look,  then,  at  all  paper  periodicals  with 
pleasure,  for  sake  of  the  Flowers  and  the  Stars. 
Suppose  them  all  extinct,  and  life  would  be 
like  a  flowerless  earth,  a  starless  heaven.  We 
should  soon  forget  the  Seasons.  The  periodi- 
cals of  the  External  would  soon  all  lose  their 
meaning,  were  there  no  longer  any  periodicals 
of  the  Internal.  These  are  the  lights  and  sha- 
dows of  life,  merrily  dancing  or  gravely  steal- 
ing over  the  dial;  remembrancers  of  the  past 
— teachers  of  the  present — prophets  of  the 
future  hours.  Were  they  all  dead.  Spring 
would  in  vain  renew  her  promise — wearisome 
•would  be  the  interminable  summer  days  the 
— fruits  of  autumn  tasteless— the  winter  ingle 


blink  mournfully  round  the  hearth.  What  are 
the  blessed  Seasons  themselves,  in  nature  and 
and  in  Thomson,  but  periodicals  of  a  larger 
growth  1  We  should  doubt  the  goodness  of 
that  man's  heart,  who  loved  not  the  periodical 
literature  of  earth  and  sky — who  would  not 
weep  to  see  one  of  its  flowers  wither — one  of 
its  stars  fall— one  beauty  die  on  its  humble 
bed — one  glory  drop  from  its  lofty  sphere. 
Let  them  bloom  and  burn  on — flowers  in  which 
there  is  no  poison,  stars  in  which  there  is  no 
disease — whose  blossoms  are  all  sweet,  and 
whose  rays  are  all  sanative — both  alike  steeped 
in  dew,  and  both,  to  the  fine  ear  of  nature's 
worshipper,  bathed  in  music. 

Pomposo  never  reads  Magazine  poetry — nor, 
we  presume,  ever  looks  at  a  field  or  wayside 
flower.  He  studies  only  the  standard  authors. 
He  walks  only  in  gardens  with  high  brick 
walls — and  then  admires  only  at  a  hint  from 
the  head-gardener.  Pomposo  does  not  know 
that  many  of  the  finest  poems  of  our  day  first 
appeared  in  magazines — or,  worse  still,  in 
newspapers  ;  and  that  in  our  periodicals,  daily 
and  weekly,  equally  with  the  monthlies  and 
quarterlies,  is  to  be  found  the  best  criticism 
of  poetry  any  where  extant,  superior  far,  in 
that  upretending  form,  to  nine-tenths  of  the 
learned  lucubrations  of  Germany — though 
some  of  it,  too,  is  good — almost  as  one's  heart 
could  desire.  What  is  the  circulation  even 
of  a  popular  volume  of  verses — if  any  such 
there  be — to  that  of  a  number  of  Magal  Hun- 
dreds of  thousands  at  home  peruse  it  before  it 
is  a  week  old — as  many  abroad  ere  the  moon 
has  thrice  renewed  her  horns;  and  the  Series 
ceases  not — regular  as  the  Seasons  that  make 
up  the  perfect  year.  Our  periodical  literature 
— say  of  it  what  you  will — gives  light  to  the 
heads  and  heat  to  the  hearts  of  millions  of  our 
race.  The  greatest  and  best  men  of  the  age 
have  not  disdained  to  belong  to  the  brother- 
hood ; — and  thus  the  hovel  holds  what  must 
not  be  missing  in  the  hall — the  furniture  of 
the  cot  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  palace — and 
duke  and  ditcher  read  their  lessons  from  the 
same  page. 

Good  people  have  said,  and  it  would  be  mis- 
anthropical to  disbelieve  or  discredit  their 
judgment,  that  our  Prose  is  original — nay,  has 
created  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  Periodical 
Literature.  Only  think  of  that,  Christopher, 
and  up  with  your  Tail  like  a  Peacock !  Why, 
there  is  some  comfort  in  that  reflection,  while 
we  sit  rubbing  our  withered  hands  up  and 
down  on  these  shrivelled  shanks.  Our  feet  are 
on  the  fender,  and  that  fire  is  felt  on  our  face; 
but  we  verily  believe  our  ice-cold  shanks 
would  not  shrink  from  the  application  of  the 
redhot  poker.  Peter  Las  a  notion  that  but  for 
that  redhot  poker  the  fire  would  go  out;  so  to 
humour  him  we  let  it  remain  in  (Jip  ribs,  and 
occasionally  brandish  it  round  our  head  in 


304 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


moments  of  enthusiasm  when  the  Crutch  looks 
tame,  and  the  Knout  a  silken  leash  for  Italian 
Greyhound. 

Old  Simonides— old  Mimnermus — old  The- 
ognis — old  Solon — old  Anacreon — old  Sopho- 
cles— old  Pindar — old  Hesiod — old  Homer — 
and  old  Methuselah !  What  mean  we  by  the 
word  old?  All  these  men  are  old  in  three 
lights — they  lived  to  a  raven  age — long,  long 
ago — and  we  heard  tell  of  them  in  our  youth. 
Their  glory  dawned  on  us  in  a  dream  of  life's 
golden  prime — and  far  .iway  seems  now  that 
dawn,  as  if  in  another  world  beyond  a  million 
seas  !  In  that  use  of  the  word  "old,"  far  from 
us  is  all  thought  of  dotage  or  decay.  Old  are 
those  great  personages  as  the  stars  are  old ;  a 
heaven  there  is  in  which  are  seen  shining,  for 
ever  young,  all  the  most  ancient  spiritual 
«  orbs  of  Song." 

In  our  delight,  too,  we  love  to  speak  of  old 
Venus  and  of  old  Cupid — of  old  Eve  and  of  old 
Cleopatra — of  old  Helen  and  of  old  Dalilah  ; 
yea,  of  old  Psyche,  though  her  aerial  wings  arc 
as  rainbow-bright  as  the  first  hour  she  waved 
them  in  the  eye  of  the  youthful  Sun. 

How  full  of  endearment  "old  boy!" — "old 
girl !"— "  Old  Christopher  North  !"— "  old  Ma- 
ga!"  To  our  simplest  sayings  age  seems  to 
give  a  consecration  which  youth  reverses. 
And  why  may  not  nur  hand,  withered  some- 
what though  it  be,  but  yet  unpalsicd,  point  out 
aloft  to  heedless  eyes  single  light  or  constella- 
tion, or  lily  by  herself  or  in  groups  unsuspect- 
ed along  the  waysides  of  our  mortal  pil- 
grimage 1 

Age  like  ours  is  even  more  loveable  than 
venerable;  and,  thinking  on  ourselves,  were 
we  a  young  woman,  we  should  assuredly 
marry  an  old  man.  Indeed,  no  man  ought  to 
marry  before  thirty,  forty,  fifty,  or  sixty  ;  and, 
were  it  not  that  life  is  so  short,  soon  enough 
at  three-score  and  ten.  At  seventy  you  are 
sagcr  than  ever,  though  scarcely  so  strong. 
You  and  life  love  each  other  as  well  as  ever; 
yet  'tis  unpleasant,  when  sailing  on  Winder- 
mere or  Lochlomond  with  your  bride,  to 
observe  the  man  in  the  Honeymoon  looking  at 
you  with  a  congratulatory  grin  of  condolence, 
to  fear  that  the  old  villain  will  smile  over  your 
grave  in  the  Season  of  Kirns  and  Harvest 
Homes,  when  the  fiddle  is  heard  in  every  farm- 
house, and  the  bagpipes  are  lowing  like  cattle 
on  a  thousand  hills.  Fain  would  he  insure  his 
life  on  the  Tippcrary  Tables.  But  the  ena- 
moured annuitant  is  haunted  with  visions  of 
his  own  Funeral  deploying  in  a  long  line  of 
chariots — one  at  the  head  of  all  armed  with 
scythes — through  the  city,  into  the  wide  gates 
of  the  Greyfriars.  Lovely  is  his  bride  in  white, 
nor  less  so  his  widow  in  black — more  so  in 
gray,  portentous  of  a  great  change.  Sad,  too, 
to  the  Sage  the  thought  of  leaving  his  first- 
born as  yet  unborn — or  if  born,  haply  an  elfish 
creature  with  a  precocious  countenance,  look- 
ing as  if  he  had  begun  life  with  borrowing  ten 
years  at  least  from  his  own  father — auld-far- 
rant  as  a  Fairy,  and  gash  as  the  Last  of  the 
Lairds. 

Dearly  do  we  love  the  young — yea,  the 
young  of  all  animals — the  young  swallows 
twittering   from    their    straw-built   shed — the 


young  lambs  bleating  on  the  tea — the  young 
bees,  God  bless  them  !  on  their  first  flight  away 
off  to  the  heather — the  young  butterflies,  who, 
born  in  the  morning,  will  die  of  old  age  ere 
night — the  young  salmon-fry  glorj-ing  in  the 
gravel  at  the  first  feeling  of  their  fins — the 
young  adders  basking,  ere  they  can  bite,  in  the 
sun,  as  yet  unconscious,  like  sucking  satirists, 
of  their  stings — young  pigs,  pretty  dears!  all 
asqueak  with  their  curled  tails  after  prolific 
grumph)' — young  lions  and  tigers,  charming 
cubs  !  like  ver}'  Christian  children  nuzzling  in 
their  nurse's  breast — 5'oung  devils,  ere  Satan 
has  sent  them  to  Sin,  who  keeps  a  fashionable 
boarding-school  in  Hades,  and  sends  up  into 
the  world  above-ground  only  her  finished 
scholars. 

Oh  !  lad  of  the  lightsome  forehead !  Thotl 
art  smiling  at  Us  ;  and  for  the  sake  of  our  own 
Past  we  enjoy  thy  Present,  and  pardon  the 
contumely  with  which  thou  silently  insultest 
our  thin  gray  hairs.  Just  such  another  "  were 
we  at  Ravensburg."  "  Carpe  Diem"  was  then 
our  motto,  as  now  it  is  yours;  "no  fear  that 
dinner  cool,"  for  we  fed  then,  as  you  feed  now, 
on  flowers  and  fruits  of  Eden.  We  lived  then 
under  the  reign  of  the  Seven  Senses  ;  Imagina- 
tion was  Prime  Minister,  and  Reason,  as  Lord 
Chancellor,  had  the  keeping  of  the  Royal  Con- 
science; and  they  were  kings,  not  tyrants — we 
subjects,  not  slaves.  Supercilious  as  thou  art, 
Puer,  art  thou  as  well  read  in  Greek  as  we 
were  at  thy  flowering  age?  Come  close  that 
we  may  whisper  into  thine  ear — while  we  lean 
our  left  shoulder  on  thine — our  right  on  the 
Crutch.  The  time  will  come  when  thou  wilt 
be,  0  Son  of  the  Morning!  even  like  unto  the 
shadow  by  thy  side!  Was  he  not  once  a 
mountaineer?  If  he  be  a  vain-glorious  boaster, 
trive  him  the  lie,  Ben-y-glow  and  thy  brother- 
hood— ve  who  so  often  heard  our  shouts  mixed 
with  the  red-deer's  belling — tossed  back  in  ex- 
ultation by  Echo,  Omnipresent  Auditress  on 
youth's  golden  hills. 

Know,  all  ye  Neophytes,  that  three  lovely 
Sisters  often  visit  the  old  man's  solitude — 
Memorj',  Imagination,  Hope.  It  would  be  hard 
to  say  which  is  the  most  beautiful.  Memory 
has  deep,  dark,  quiet  eyes,  and  when  she  closes 
their  light,  the  long  eyelashes  lie  like  shadows 
on  her  pensive  cheeks,  that  smile  faintly  as  if 
the  dreamer  were  half  asleep — a  visionary 
slumber,  which  sometimes  the  dewdrop  melt- 
ing on  the  leaf  will  break,  sometimes  not  the 
thunder-peal  with  all  its  echoes.  Imagination 
is  a  brighter  and  bolder  Beauty,  with  large 
lamping  eyes  of  uncertain  colour,  as  if  fluctu- 
ating with  rainbow  light,  and  with  features  fine 
as  those  which  Grecian  genius  gave  to  the 
Muses  in  the  Parian  Marble,  yet  in  their  dar- 
ing delicacy  defined  like  the  face  of  Apollo. 
As  for  Hope — divinest  of  the  divine — Collins, 
in  one  long  line  of  light,  has  painted  the  picture 
of  the  angel, — 

"  And  Hope  enchanted  smiled,  and  waved  her  golden 
hair." 

All  our  great  prose-writers  owe  the  glory  of 
their  power  to  our  great  poets.  Even  Hobbes 
translated  Homer  as  well — that  is  as  ill — as 
Thucydides;   the   Epic   in    his    prime    after 


L'ENVOY. 


300 


eighty;  the  History  in  his  youth  at  forty;  and 
it  is  fearful  to  dream  what  the  brainful  and 
heartless  metaphysician  -n^ouldhave  been,  had 
he  never  heard  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey. 
What  is  the  greatest  of  prose-writers  in  com- 
parison with  a  great  poef?  Nay — we  shall  not 
be  deterred  by  the  fear  of  self-contradiction 
(see  our  "Stroll  to  Grassmere")  from  asking 
■who  is  a  great  prose-writer  ?  We  cannot  name 
one ;  they  all  sink  in  Shakspeare.  Campbell 
finely  asks  and  answers — 

"  Without  the  smile  from  partial  beauty  won. 
Oh!  what  were  man  1  a  world  witliout  a  sun." 

Suppose  the  world  without  poetry — how  ab- 
surd would  seem  the  Sun!  Strip  the  word 
"  phenomena"  of  its  poetical  meaning,  and 
forthwith  the  whole  human  race,  "moving 
about  in  worlds  realized,"  would  lose  their 
powers  of  speech.  But,  thank  Heaven !  we 
are  Makers  all.  Inhabiting,  we  verily  believe, 
a  real,  and  substantial,  and  palpable  outer 
world,  which  nevertheless  shall  one  day  perish 
like  a  scroll,  we  build  our  bowers  of  joy  in  the 
Apparent,  and  lie  down  to  rest  in  a  drapery  of 
Dreams. 

Thus  we  often  love  to  dream  our  silent  way 
even  through  the  noisy  world.  And  dreamers 
are  with  dreamers  spiritually,  though  in  the 
body  apart;  nor  wandering  at  will  think  they 
whence  they  come,  or  whither  they  are  going, 
assured  by  delight  that  they  will  reach  their 
journey's  end — like  a  bee,  that  in  many  a 
musical  gyration  goes  humming  round  men's 
heads  and  tree-tops,  aimlessly  curious  in  his 
joy,  yet  knowing  instinctively  the  straight  line 
that  intersects  all  those  airy  circles,  leading  to 
and  fro  between  his  hive  in  the  garden  and  the 
honey-dew  on  the  heather  hills. 

What  can  it  be  that  now  recalls  to  our  re- 
membrance a  few  lines  of  Esop,  the  delightful 
old  Fabulist,  the  Merry  and  Wise,  who  set  our 
souls  a-thinking  and  our  hearts  a-feeling  in 
boyhood,  by  moral  lessons  read  to  them  in  al- 
most every  incident  befalling  in  life's  common 
walks — solemn  as  Simonides  in  this  his  sole 
surviving  elegiac  strain  T 

"  What  weary  wo,  what  endless  strife 
Bring'st  thou  to  mortal  men,  O  Life ! 

Each  hour  they  draw  their  breath. 
Alas!  the  wretches  all  despair 
To  flee  the  ills  they  cannot  bear. 

But  through  the  gates  of  Death. 

"Yet  beautiful  exceedincly 

Are  all  the  works  of  God — 
The  starry  heavens,  the  rolling  sea. 

The  earth — thine  own  abode  : 
Blest  are  they  all,  and  blest  the  light 
Of  sun  by  day,  and  moon  by  night. 

"Yea,  happy  all— all  blest; — but  this 

To  man  alone  is  given. 
Whene'er  he  tries  to  catch  at  bliss. 

To  grasp  the  wrath  of  Heaven  ; 
For  his  are  ever-ve.xing  fears. 
And  bitter  thoughts — and  bitter  tears. 

"  And  yet  how  beautiful  art  Thou 
On  Earth  and  Sea — and  on  the  brow 

Of  starry  Heaven  !  The  Night 
Sends  forth  the  moon  Thee  to  adorn  ; 
And  Thee  to  L'lorify  the  Morn 

Restores  the  Orb  of  Light. 

"Yet  all  is  full  of  Pain  and  Dread  ; 
Bedrench'd  in  tears  for  ever  shed: 

The  darkness  render'd  worse 
By  gleams  of  joy — and  if  by  Heaven 
A  Blessing  seemeth  to  be  given, 
It  changes  to  a  Curse." 

39  * 


Even  in  our  paraphrase  are  not  these  lines 
very  impressive]  In  the  original  they  are 
much  more  solemn.  They  are  not  querulous, 
yet  full  of  lamentation.  We  see  in  them  not 
a  weaJi  spirit  quarrelling  with  fate,  but  a  strong 
spirit  subdued  by  a  sense  of  the  conditions  on 
which  life  has  been  given ;  conditions  against 
•which  it  is  vain  to  contend,  to  which  it  is  hard 
to  submit,  but  which  may  yet  be  borne  by  a 
will  deriving  strength  from  necessity,  and  in 
itself  noble  by  nature.  Nor,  dark  as  the  doc- 
trine is,  can  we  say  it  is  false.  Intellect  and 
Imagination  may  from  doleful  experiences 
have  too  much  generalized  their  inductions, 
so  as  to  seem  to  themselves  to  have  establish- 
ed the  Law  of  Misery  as  the  Law  of  Life. 
But  perhaps  it  is  only  thus  that  the  Truth  can 
be  made  available  to  man,  as  it  regards  the 
necessity  of  Endurance.  All  is  not  wretched- 
ness ;  but  the  soul  seeks  to  support  itself  by 
the  belief  that  it  is  really  so.  Holding  that 
creed,  it  has  no  excuse  for  itself,  if  at  any  time 
it  is  stung  to  madness  by  misery,  or  grovels  in 
the  dust  in  a  passion  of  grief ;  none,  if  at  any 
time  it  delivers  itself  wholly  up,  abandoning 
itself  to  joy,  and  acts  as  if  it  trusted  to  the 
permanence  of  any  blessing  under  the  law  of 
Mutability.  The  Poet,  in  the  hour  of  profound 
emotion,  declares  that  every  blessing  sent  from 
heaven  is  a  Nemesis.  That  oracular  response 
inspires  awe.  A. salutary  fear  is  kept  alive  in 
the  foolish  by  such  sayings  of  the  wise.  Even 
to  us — now — they  sound  like  a  knell.  Reli- 
gion has  instructed  Philosophy;  and  for  Fate 
we  substitute  God.  But  all  men  feel  that  the 
foundations  of  Faith  are  laid  in  the  dark  depths 
of  their  being,  and  that  all  human  happiness 
is  mysteriously  allied  with  pain  and  sorrow. 
The  most  perfect  bliss  is  ever  awful,  as  if  we 
enjoyed  it  under  the  shadow  of  some  great  and 
gracious  wing  that  would  not  long  be  detained 
fr  m  heaven. 

It  is  not  for  ordinary  minds  to  attempt  giv- 
ing utterance  to  such  simplicities.  On  their 
tongues  truths  become  truisms.  Sentimerits, 
that  seem  always  fresh,  falling  from  the  lips 
of  moral  wisdom,  are  stale  in  the  mouths  of 
men  uninitiated  in  the  greater  mysteries.  Ge- 
nius colours  common  words  with  an  impres- 
sive light,  that  makes  them  moral  to  all  eyes 
— breathes  into  them  an  affecting  music,  that 
steals  into  all  hearts  like  a  revelation  and  a 
religion.  They  become  memorable.  They 
pa.ss,  as  maxims,  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion ;  and  all  because  the  divinity  that  is  in 
every  man's  bosom  responds  to  the  truthful 
strain  it  had  of  yore  itself  inspired.  Just  so 
with  the  men  we  meet  on  our  life-journey. 
One  man  is  impressive  in  all  his  looks  and 
words,  on  all  serious  or  solemn  occasions  ;  and 
we  carry  away  with  us  moral  impressions  from 
his  eyes  or  lips.  Another  man  says  the  same 
things,  or  nearly  so,  and  perhaps  with  more 
fervour,  and  his  locks  are  silver.  But  we  for- 
get his  person  in  an  hour;  nor  does  his  voice 
ever  haunt  our  solitude.  Simonides — S^^Ion 
—Esop  !— why  do  such  lines  of  thens  as  those 
assure  us  they  were  Sages  1  The  same  senti 
ments  are  the  staple  of  many  a  sermon  that 
has  soothed  sinners  into  snoring  sleep. 

Men  take  refuge  even  in  ocular  deception 
2  c  2 


306 


RECREATIONS  OF  CHRISTOPHER  NORTH. 


from  despair.     Over  buried  beaut}',  that  once 
glowed  with  the  same  passitm  that  consumes 
themselves,  they  build  a  while  marble  tomb, 
or  a  green  grass  grave,  and  forget  much  they 
ought  to  remember — all  profounder  thoughts — 
■while  gazing  on  the  epitaph  of  letters  or  of 
flowers.     'Tis  a  vision   to  their  senses,  with 
which  Imagination  would  fain  seek  to  delude 
Love.  And  'tis  well  that  the  deception  prospers  ; 
for  what  if  Love  could  bid  the  burial-ground 
give  up  or  disclose  its  dead  1    Or  if  Love's  eyes  ' 
sav/  through  dust  as  throusjh   air!     What  if  ' 
this  planet — which  men  call  Earth — were  at 
all  times  seen  and  felt  to  be  a  cemetery  circling 
round  the  sun  that  feeds  it  with  death,  and  not 
a  globe  of  green   animated  with  life — even  as 
the  dewdrop  on  the  rose's  leaf  is  animated  with 
millions  of  invisible  creatures,  wantoning  in  . 
bliss  born   of  the   sunshine   and   the   vernal  ; 
prime?  I 

Are  we  sermonizing  overmuch  in  this  our  ' 
L'Envot  to  these  our  misnamed  Rkchkations  I 
Even  a  sermon  is  not  always  useless ;  the  few 
concluding  sentences  are  somctiiiies  luminous, 
like  stars  rising  on  a  dull  twilight;  the  little} 
flower  that  attracted  Park's  eyes  when  he  was 
fainting  in  the  desert,  was  to  him  beauteous  as 
the  rose  of  Sharon ;  there  is  solemnity  in  the 
shadow  of  quiet  trees  on  a  noisy  road;  a 
churchyard  may  be  felt  even  in  a  village  fair; 
a  face  of  sorrow  passes  by  us  in  our  gaiety, 
neither  unfelt  nor  unremembered  in  its  uncom- 
plaining calm;  and  sweet  from  some  still 
house  lu  city  stir  is 

"The  \'oice  of  psalms,  the  simple  song  of  praise." 

W-e  daresay  you  are  a  very  modest  person ; 
but  we  are  all  given  to  self-glorification,  pri- 
vate mtn  and  public,  individuals  and  nations; 
and  every  one  Era  and  Ego  has  been  prouder 
than  another  of  its  respective  achievements.  To 
hear  the  Present  Generation  speak,  such  an 
elderly  gentleman  as  the  Past  Generation 
begins  to  suspect  that  his  personal  origin  lies 
hid  in  the  darkness  of  antiquity  ;  and  worse — 
that  he  is  of  the  Pechs.  JSow,  we  ofler  to  back 
the  Past  Generation  against  the  Present  Genera- 
tion, at  any  feat  the  Present  Generation  chooses, 
and  give  the  long  odds.  Say  Poetry.  Well, 
■we  bring  to  the  scratch  a  few  charajutms — 
such  as,  Beattie,  Cowper,  Crabbc,  Kugers, 
Bowles,  Burns,  Baillie,  Campbell,  CJraliam, 
Montgomery, Scott,  Soulhey,  Coleridge,  Words- 
■worth,  Hunt,  Hogg,  Shelley,  Keates,  Pollok, 
Cunningham,  Bloomfiekl,  Clare,  and — risum 
tcnenlis  atnici — Ourselves. 

••All  with  waistcoats  of  rednnri  l)rcprhps  of  liliie. 
And  niiglity  lung  tails  that  come  swingcin;^  through." 

And  at  sight  of  the  cavalcade — for  each  poet 
is  on  his  Pegasus — the  champions  of  the  Pre- 
sent Generation,  accoutred  in  corduroy  kilts 
and  top-boots,  and  on  animals  which  "  well  do' 
\ve  know,  but  dare  not  name,"  wheel  to  the 
right  about  with  "one  dismal  universal  bray," 
brandishing  their  wooden  sabres,  till,  frenzied 
by  their  own  trumpeters,  they  charge  madly  a 
palisade  in  their  owni  rear,  and  as  dismounted 
cavalry  make  good  their  retreat.  This  in  their 
strategics  is  called  a  drawn  battle. 

Heroes,  alive  or  dead,  of  the  Past  Genera- 
ion,  we  bid  you  hail !  Exceeding  happiness  to 


have  been  born  among  such  Births — to  have 
lived  among  such  Lives — to  be  buried  among 
such  Graves.  O  great  glory  to  have  seen  such 
Stars  rising  one  after  another  larger  and  more 
lustrous — at  times,  when  dilated  with  delight, 
more  like  Moons  than  Stars — like  Seraphs 
hovering  over  the  earth  they  loved,  though 
seeming  so  high  up  in  heaven  ! 

To  whom  now  may  the  young  enthusiast 
turn  as  to  Beings  of  the  same  kind  with  him- 
self, but  of  a  higher  order,  and  therefore  with 
a  love  that  fears  no  sin  in  its  idolatry!  The 
young  enthusiast  may  turn  to  some  of  the 
living,  but  he  will  think  more  of  others  who 
are  gone.  The  dead  know  not  of  his  love,  and 
he  can  hold  no  communion  with  the  grave. 
But  Poets  never  die — immortal  in  their  works, 
the  Library  is  the  world  of  spirits;  there  they 
dwell,  the  same  as  in  the  flesh,  when  by  medi- 
tation most  cleansed  and  purified — yet  with 
some  holy  change  it  seems — a  change  not  in 
them  but  in  us,  who  are  stilled  by  the  stillness, 
and  attribute  something  supernatural  to  the 
Living  Dead. 

Since  first  this  Golden  Pen  of  ours — given 
us  by  one  who  meant  it  but  for  a  memorial — 
began,  many  years  ago,  to  let  drop  on  paper  a 
few  careless  words,  what  quires  so  distained — 
some  pages,  let  us  hope,  with  durable  ink — 
have  accumulated  on  our  hands  !  Some  haugh- 
ty ones  have  chosen  to  say  rather,  how  many 
leaves  have  been  wafted  away  to  wither  !  But 
not  a  few  of  the  gifted — near  and  afar— have 
called  on  us  ■vsiih  other  voices — reminding  us 
that  long  a^o  we  were  elected,  on  sight  of  our 
credentials — not  indeed  ■svithout  a  few  black 
balls — into  the  Brotherhood.  The  shelf  marked 
with  our  initials  exhibits  some  half-dozen 
volumes  t)nly,  and  has  room  for  scores.  It 
may  not  be  easily  found  in  that  vast  Library; 
but,  humble  member  as  we  are,  we  feel  it  now 
to  be  a  point  of  honour  to  make  an  occasional 
contribution  to  the  Club.  So  here  is  the  Fihst 
iSkhies  of  what  we  have  chosen  to  call  our 
Rf.iueations.  There  have  been  much  recast- 
ing' and  remoulding — many  alterations,  be- 
j  lieved  by  us  to  have  been  wrought  with  no 
unskilful  spirit  of  change— cruel,  we  confess, 
to  our  feelings,  rejections  of  numerous  lucu- 
I  brations  to  their  father  dear — and  if  we  may 
use  such  words,  not  a  few  creations,  in  the 
same  genial  spirit  in  which  we  worked  of  old 
— not  always  unrewarded  by  sympathy,  which 
is  better  than  praise. 

For  kindness  shown  when  kindness  was 
most  needed — for  sympathy  and  afiection — yea, 
love  itself — for  grief  and  pity  not  misplaced, 
though  bestowed  in  a  mistaken  belief  of  our 
condition,  forlorn  indeed,  but  not  wholly  for- 
lorn— for  solace  and  encouragement  sent  to  us 
from  afar,  from  cities  and  solitudes,  and  from 
beyond  seas  and  oceans,  from  brethren  who 
never  saw  our  face,  and  never  may  see  it,  we 
owe  a  debt  of  everlasting  gratitude  ;  and  life 
itself  must  leave  our  heart,  that  beats  not  now 
as  it  used  to  beat,  but  with  dismal  trepidation, 
before  it  forget,  or  cease  to  remember  as  clearly 
as  now  it  hears  them,  every  one  of  the  many 
words  that  came  sweetly  and  solemnly  to  us 
from  the  Great  and  Good.  Joy  and  sorrow 
make  up  the  lot  of  our  mortal  estate,  and  by 


L'ENVOY. 


307 


sympathy  with  them,  we  acknowledge  our 
brotherhood  with  all  our  kind.  We  do  far 
more.  The  strength  that  is  untasked,  lends 
itself  to  divide  the  load  under  which  another  is 
bowed  ;  and  the  calamity  that  lies  on  the  heads 
of  men  is  lightened,  while  those  who  at  the 
time  are  not  called  to  bear,  are  yet  willing  to 
involve  themselves  in  the  sorrow  of  a  brother. 
So  soothed  by  such  sympathy  may  a  poor 
mortal  be,  that  the  wretch  almost  upbraids 
himself  for  transient  gleams  of  gladness,  as 
if  he  were  false  to  the  sorrow  which  he  sighs 
to  think  he  ought  to  have  cherished  more  sa- 
credly within  his  miserable  heart. 

One  word  embraces  all  these  pages  of  ours 
— Memorials.  Friends  are  lost  to  us  by  re- 
moval— for  then  even  the  dearest  are  often  ut- 
terly forgotten.  But  let  something  that  once 
was  theirs  suddenly  meet  our  eyes,  and  in  a 
moment,  returning  from  the  region  of  the  rising 
or  the  setting  sun,  the  friend  of  our  youth  seems 
at  our  side,  unchanged  his  voice  and  his  smile  ; 
or  dearer  to  our  eyes  than  ever,  because  of 
some  affecting  change  wrought  on  face  and 
figure  by  climate  and  by  years.  Let  it  be  but 
his  name  written  with  his  own  hand  on  the 
title-page  of  a  book  ;  or  a  few  syllables  on  the 
margin  of  a  favourite  passage  which  long  ago 
we  have  read  together,  "  when  life  itself  was 
new,"  and  poetry  overflowed  the  whole  world  ; 
or  a  lock  of  her  hair  in  whos«  eyes  we  first 
knew  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  depth."  And 
if  death  had  stretched  out  the  absence  into  the 
dirn  arms  of  eternity — and  removed  the  dis- 
tance away  into  that  bourne  from  which  no 
traveller  returns — the  absence  and  the  distance 
of  her  on  whose  forehead  once  hung  the  relic 
we  adore — what  heart  may  abide  the  beauty 
of  the  ghost  that  doth  sometimes  at  midnight 
appear  at  our  sleepless  bed,  and  with  pale  up- 
lifted arms  waft  over  us  at  once  a  blessing  and 
a  farewell ! 

Why  so  sad  a  word — Farewell?  We  should 
not  weep  in  wishing  welfare,  nor  sully  felicity 
■with  tears.  But  we  do  weep  because  evil  lies 
larking  in  wait  over  all  the  earth  for  the  inno- 
cent and  the  good,  the  happy  and  the  beautiful ; 
and,  when  guarded  no  more  by  our  eyes,  it 
seems  as  if  the  demon  would  leap  out  upon  his 
prey.  Or  is  it  because  we  are  so  selfish  that 
we  cannot  bear  the  thought  of  losing  the  sight 
of  the  happiness  of  a  beloved  object,  and  are 
troubled  with  a  strange  jealousy  of  beings  un- 
known to  us,  and  for  ever  to  be  unknown, 
about  to  be  taken  into  the  very  heart,  per- 
haps, of  the  friend  from  whom  we  are  part- 
ing, and  to  whom  in  that  fear  we  give  almost 
a  sullen  farewell  T     Or  does  the  shadow  of 


death  pass  over  us  while  we  stand  for  the  last 
time  together  on  the  sea-shore,  and  see  the  ship 
with  all  her  sails  about  to  voyage  away  to  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  ]  Or  do  we  shud- 
der at  the  thought  of  mutability  in  all  created 
things — and  know  thatereafewsuns  shall  have 
brightened  the  path  of  the  swift  vessel  on  the 
sea,  we  shSll  be  dimly  remembered — at  last 
forgotten — and  all  those  days,  months,  and 
years  that  once  seemed  eternal,  swallowed  up 
in  everlasting  oblivion  ! 

With  us  all  ambitious  desires  some  years 
ago  expired.  Far  rather  would  we  read  than 
write  now-a-days — far  rather  than  read,  sit 
with  shut  eyes  and  no  book  in  the  room — far 
rather  than  so  sit,  walk  about  alone  any  where 

"  Beneath  the  umbrajre  deep 
That  shades  the  silent  world  of  memory." 

Shall  we  live  T  or  "  like  beasts  and  common 
people  die]"  There  is  something  harsh  and 
grating  in  the  collocation  of  these  words  of  the 
"  Melancholy  Cowley ;"  yet  he  meant  no  harm, 
for  he  was  a  kind,  good  creature  as  ever  was 
born,  and  a  true  genius.  He  there  has  ex- 
pressed concisely,  but  too  abruptly,  the  mere 
fact  of  their  falling  alike  and  together  into  ob- 
livion. Far  better  Gray's  exquisite  words, 
"  On  some  fond  breast  the  parting  soul  relies !" 

The  reliance  is  firm  and  sure;  th(  "fond 
breast"  is  faithful  to  its  trust,  and  dying,  trans- 
mits it  to  another;  till  after  two  or  three  trans- 
missions— holy  all,  but  fainter  and  dimmer — 
the  pious  tradition  dies,  and  all  memorial  of 
the  love  and  the  delight,  the  pity  and  the  sor 
row,  is  swallowed  up  in  vacant  night. 

Posthumous  Fame  !  Proud  words — yet  may 
they  be  uttered  in  an  humble  spirit.  The  com- 
mon lot  of  man  is,  after  death — obli^'ion.  Yet 
genius,  however  small  its  sphere,  if  conversant 
with  the  conditions  of  the  human  heart,  may 
vivify  with  indestructible  life  some  happy  de- 
lineations, that  shall  continue  to  be  held  dear 
by  successive  sorrowers  in  this  vale  of  tears. 
If  the  name  of  the  delineator  continue  to  have 
something  sacred  in  its  sound — obscure  to  the 
many  as  it  may  be,  or  non-existent — the  hope 
of  such  posthumous  fame  is  sufficient  to  one 
who  overrates  not  his  own  endowments.  And 
as  the  hope  has  its  root  in  love  and  sympathy, 
he  v/ho  by  his  writings  has  inspired  towards 
himself,  when  in  life,  some  of  these  feelings  in 
the  hearts  of  not  a  few  who  never  saw  his  face, 
seems  to  be  justified  in  believing  that  even 
after  final  obliteration  of  Hie  jacet  from  his 
tombstone,  his  memory  will  be  regarded  with 
something  of  the  same  affection  in  his  Re- 
mains. 


THE  END. 


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